The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806 Brill’S Companions to European History

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The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806 Brill’s Companions to European History

VOLUME 1

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/bceh The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806

A European Perspective

Edited by R.J.W. Evans and Peter H. Wilson

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806 : a European perspective / edited by R.J.W. Evans and Peter H. Wilson. p. cm. — (Brill’s companions to European history ; v. 1) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-20683-0 (hardback : acid-free paper) 1. Holy Roman Empire—History— 1517–1648. 2. Holy Roman Empire—History—1648–1804. 3. Holy Roman Empire—History— 1273–1517. 4. Holy Roman Empire—Politics and government. I. Evans, Robert John Weston. II. Wilson, Peter H. (Peter Hamish)

DD175.H63 2012 943’.02—dc23 2012009348

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents

List of Illustrations and Maps ...... ix List of Contributors ...... xi

Introduction ...... 1 Peter H. Wilson and R.J.W. Evans

Section one Turning Points

The Westphalian Peace: Augsburg Mark II or Celebrated Armistice? ...... 19 Lothar Höbelt

The Holy Roman Empire as Model for Saint-Pierre’s Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe ...... 35 Peter Schröder

‘Once we were Trojans!’ Contemporary Reactions to the Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation .... 51 Wolfgang Burgdorf

Section two Habsburg Governance

Inside the Empire and for the House of Austria: The Buquoy Family from the Spanish Low Countries to Bohemia ...... 79 Olivier Chaline

The Habsburg Court in Vienna: Kaiserhof or Reichshof ? ...... 91 Jeroen Duindam

Bohemia and the Empire: Acceptance and Rejection ...... 121 Jaroslav Pánek vi contents

Bohemia, Silesia and the Empire: Negotiating Princely Dignity on the Eastern Periphery ...... 143 Petr Matˇa

Separation and Symbiosis: The Habsburg Monarchy and the Empire in the Seventeenth Century ...... 167 Thomas Winkelbauer

Section three Cores and Peripheries

State-Building within the Empire: The Cases of Brandenburg- Prussia and Savoy-Sardinia ...... 187 Sven Externbrink

Core and Periphery: The Netherlands and the Empire from the Late Fifteenth to the Early Seventeenth Century ...... 203 Nicolette Mout

The Imperial System in Early Modern Northern Italy: A Web of Dukedoms, Fiefs and Enclaves along the Po ...... 217 Blythe Raviola

Section four Neighbours

The Impact of War: The Holy Roman Empire and Poland- Lithuania, c. 1600–1806 ...... 239 Robert Frost

An ‘Old Empire’ on the Periphery of the Old Empire: The Kingdom of Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries ...... 259 Géza Pálffy

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Electoral Saxony in the Early Eighteenth Century: Crisis and Cooperation ...... 281 Adam Perłakowski contents vii

The Northern Periphery: German Cultural Influences on the Danish-Norwegian Kingdom during the Enlightenment ...... 293 Thomas Munck

Section five Imperial Culture and Identity

Centres or Periphery? Art and Architecture in the Empire ...... 315 Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann

Where Did the Jewels of the German Imperial Princes Come From? Aspects of Material Cultural in the Empire ...... 333 Kim Siebenhüner

Portraiture at the Imperial Court in the First Half of the 17th Century ...... 349 Friedrich Polleross

Epilogue International System and Imperial System in the ‘Short’ Eighteenth Century: Two Worlds? ...... 367 Heinz Duchhardt

Bibliography ...... 373 Index ...... 385 Illustration Section

List of Illustrations and Maps

Kaufmann 1. Lucas Cranach the Elder, St. Christopher, woodcut. Courtesy of the British Museum. 2. Bernt Notke, St. George and the Dragon, Stockholm, Great Church (Storkyrka). © Jürgen Howaldt 2007. 3. Egidius Sadeler, Prague during the reign of Rudolf II in Dějiny světové Díl III: dějiny novověké, (Prague (1900)). See also http://commons.wiki- media.org/wiki/File:Praha_Hrad_1607.jpg. 4. St. Michael’s church, Munich, interior view of apse (designed by Fried rich Sustris). © Photo by DAVID ILIFF 2006. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0 See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michaelskirche_Munich_-zSt_ Michael%27s_Church_High_Altar.jpg. 5. Bernardo Bellotto, View of Schönbrunn Palace and gardens. Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library Ltd. 6. View (print) of Zwinger, Dresden, designed by Matthaeus Daniel Poep- pelmann. Courtesy of The British Museum.

Siebenhüner 1. Bernhard Strigel (1460–1528), Emperor Maximilian I with his family, after 1515, Inv. Nr. 832. Courtesy Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. 2. Pendant with Saint George as dragon slayer. Germany, end of 16th century. Gold, enamel, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls. Das Neue Grüne Gewölbe, Inv. Nr. 1997/1. Courtesy Staatliche Kunstsammlung, Dresden. 3. Hans Maler (1480–1526/1529), Anna of Hungary and Bohemia, Inv. Nr. 1937.2. Courtesy Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. 4. The ‘Three Brethren’ and the ‘White Rose’. Watercolor on parchment, Inv. Nr. 1916.475 and 1916.478. Courtesy Historisches Museum, Basel. 5. The ‘Feather’ and the ‘Belt’. After Gerard Loyet, drawings before 1504. Watercolor on parchment. Inv. Nr. 1916.476 and Inv. Nr. 1916.477. Cour- tesy Historisches Museum, Basel. x list of illustrations and maps

Polleroß 1. Hans von Aachen, Emperor Rudolf II, painting, around 1603; Inv.-Nr. WM 1509–1948. Courtesy Wellington Museum, London. 2. Wolf Kilian (after Jeremias Günther?), Emperor Ferdinand II, engrav ing, 1622. Private Collection. 3. Egidius Sadeler after Adriaen de Vries, Emperor Rudolf II on Horse- back, engraving, around 1603. Private Collection. 4. Jan van Hoecke, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm on Horseback, painting, around 1645, Inv.-Nr. 697. Courtesy Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemäl- degalerie, Vienna. 5. Jan van Hoecke, Emperor Ferdinand III, painting, around 1645, Inv.-Nr. 3283. Courtesy Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemäldegalerie, Vienna. 6. Joannes Meyssens and Cornelius Galle the Younger after ‘Van Dyck’, Emperor Ferdinand III, engraving, 1649. Private Collection. 7. Frans Luycx, Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Tyrol, painting around 1650, Inv.-Nr. 9425. Courtesy Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemäldegalerie, Vienna. 8. Joannes Meyssens and Cornelius Galle the Younger after ‘Van Dyck’, Empress Maria Anne, engraving, 1649. Private Collection.

Maps

1. The Empire in 1547. 2. The Empire in 1648. 3. The Empire in 1803. 4. The Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1660–1772. 5. Hungary and its neighbours c.1600. List of Contributors

Wolfgang Burgdorf is a lecturer at the University of Munich. He is the author of Reichskonstitution und Nation. Verfassungsreformprojekte für das Heilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation im politischen Schrifttum von 1648 bis 1806 (1998) and Ein Weltbild verliert seine Welt. Der Untergang des Alten Reiches und die Generation 1806. (2006).

Olivier Chaline is professor at the University of Paris IV (Paris-Sorbonne). He is noted esp. as an expert in the central-European Counter-Reformation. He is the author of La Reconquête catholique de l’Europe centrale, XVIe– XVIIIe siècle (1998) and La Bataille de la Montagne Blanche, 8 novembre 1620. Un mystique chez les guerriers (2000).

Heinz Duchhardt is director emeritus of the department of Universalge schichte at the Institute of European History at Mainz. He has published very widely in the field of early modern German and European history. His recent books include Balance of Power und Pentarchie: Internationale Beziehungen, 1700–85 (1997), Das Zeitalter des Absolutismus (3rd edn 1998), Europa am Vorabend der Moderne, 1650–1800 (2003), and Stein, eine Biogra- phie (2007).

Jeroen Duindam has recently become professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leiden. He is known as a historian of royal and princely courts and as the author of Myths of Power: Norbert Elias and the Early Modern European Court (1994), and Vienna and Versailles: the Courts of Europe’s Dynastic Rivals, 1550–1780 (2003).

R.J.W. Evans is Regius professor emeritus of History at the University of Oxford. He works on the post-medieval history of central and eastern Europe, especially of the Habsburg lands, 1526 to 1918. Among his publications are Rudolf II and his World: A Study in Intellectual History, 1576–1612 (1973, several edns); The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy (1979, several edns); and Austria, Hungary and the Habsburgs: Central Europe, c.1683– 1867 (2008).

Sven Externbrink is a lecturer at the University of Heidelberg. He has worked particularly on relations between France and central Europe in xii list of contributors the 17–18C and is the author of Le coeur du monde. Frankreich und die norditalienischen Staaten (Mantua, Parma, Savoyen) im Zeitalter Riche- lieus, 1624–35 (1999), and Friedrich der Grosse, Maria Theresia und das Alte Reich: Deutschlandbild und Diplomatie Frankreichs im Siebenjährigen Krieg (2006).

Robert Frost is professor of Early Modern History at the University of Aberdeen. He is an expert on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and author of After the Deluge: Poland-Lithuania and the Second Northern War, 1655–1660 (1993) and The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Eastern and Northern Europe, 1558–1721 (2000).

Lothar Höbelt is professor at the Institut für Geschichte, University of Vienna. Besides extensive writings on 19–20C Austrian history he has recently published Ferdinand III. Friedenskaiser wider Willen (2008).

Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann is Frederick Marquand professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. He has written very widely on the history of art in central Europe, from his initial work on the court of Rudolf II, to which he has recently returned with his latest monograph on Arcimboldo (2009), to the 18C in his Franz Anton Maulbertsch (2005). He is well known for his outstanding synthesis, Court, Cloister and City: Art and Culture of Central Europe, 1450–1800 (1995).

Petr Matˇa is a lecturer at the Institut für Geschichte, University of Vienna. He is completing a comparative study of representative institutions in early modern central Europe. He is the author of a major new account of the Bohemian nobility, Svět české aristokracie, 1500–1700 (2004), and co- editor of Die Habsburgermonarchie, 1620 bis 1740: Leistungen und Grenzen des Absolutismusparadigmas (2006).

Nicolette Mout is professor emerita of Modern History and of Central- European Studies at the University of Leiden. She is expert in a wide range of topics relating to the early modern Netherlands, esp. their intellectual history and relation to central Europe, and has published Die Kul- tur des Humanismus. Reden, Briefe, Traktate, Gespräche von Petrarca bis Kepler (1998), and most recently (jt.-ed.) The World of Emperor Charles V (2005). list of contributors xiii

Thomas Munck is Professor in Early Modern History at the University of Glasgow. He has written extensively on both Scandinavian and European history in his period, esp. Seventeenth-century Europe: State, Conflict and the Social Order in Europe, 1598–1700 (2nd edn, 2005), and The Enlighten- ment: a Comparative Social History 1721–94 (2000).

Géza Pálffy is a member of the Történettudományi Intézet of the Hunga- rian Academy of Sciences. He is a prolific author on 16–17C Hungary and its relations with the rest of the Habsburg Monarchy, esp. in the military and aristocratic spheres. Examples of his work are Katonai igazságszolgál- tatás a királyi Magyarországon a XVI–XVII. században (1995) and a survey volume now available in English as The Kingdom of Hungary and the Habs- burg Monarchy in the Sixteenth Century (2009).

Jaroslav Pánek is professor of Czech and Slovak History at the Charles Uni- versity of Prague, a vice-president of the Council of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and chair of the Czech National Committee of Historians. He is the author of many books on Bohemian history, most recently Poslední Rožmberk: životní příběh Petra Voka (1996), and Vilém z Rožmberka: politik smíru (1998), and the recent recipient of a sumptuous Festschrift, Per saecula ad tempora nostra (2 vols, 2007).

Adam Perłakowski is lecturer at the Instytut Historii of the Jagiellonian University of Cracow, with special interests in the Saxon period of Polish history. He has written a monograph on one of King Augustus II’s closest Polish associates, Jan Jerzy Przebendowski jako podskarbi wielki koronny, 1703–29: studium funkcjonowania ministerium (2004).

Friedrich Polleroß is lecturer and director of the slide collection at the Institut für Kunstgeschichte of the University of Vienna. His main field is iconography and portraiture of the baroque period in Austria. He is the author of Das sakrale Identifikationsporträt: ein höfischer Bildtypus vom 13. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (1988), and his major study, Die Kunst der Diplo- matie. Auf den Spuren des kaiserlichen Botschafters Leopold Joseph Graf von Lamberg, 1653–1706 (2010), has just appeared.

Blythe Alice Raviola is an archivist associated with the Department of His- tory at the University of Turin. She has a special interest in Reichsitalien. She has written the monograph Il Monferrato gonzaghesco: istituzioni ed xiv list of contributors

élites di un micro-stato, 1536–1708 (2003), and recently edited Lo spazio sabaudo: intersezioni, frontiere e confini in età moderna and Cartografia del Monferrato: geografia, spazi interni e confini in un piccolo stato italiano tra Medioevo e Ottocento (both 2007).

Peter Schröder is senior lecturer in History at University College London. He works on European political thought, esp. Hobbes and Thomasius, whom he has compared in his Naturrecht und absolutistisches Staatsrecht. Eine vergleichende Studie (2001). Most recently he has produced an edition of Johann Gottlieb Heineccius, A Methodical System of Universal Law Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations (2008).

Kim Siebenhüner is research associate at the Historisches Seminar of the University of Basle. Following doctoral work which issued in Bigamie und Inquisition in Italien, 1600–1750 (2006), she now also studies the history of the Roman Inquisition (see her article in Past & Present in 2008), and aspects of material culture in the 16–17C.

Peter H. Wilson is G.F. Grant professor of History at the University of Hull. He is a specialist in early modern German history, particularly the political, military, social, and cultural history of the Holy Roman Empire between 1495 and 1806. His major publications include The Holy Roman Empire 1495–1806 (1999, 2nd edn 2011), Absolutism in Central Europe (2000), From Reich to Revolution: German History, 1558–1806 (2004), and Europe’s Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War (2009).

Thomas Winkelbauer is professor at the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung in the University of Vienna. His major works on Austrian history include Fürst und Fürstendiener: Gundaker von Liechten- stein, ein österreichischer Aristokrat des konfessionellen Zeitalters (1999), and Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht: Länder und Untertanen des Hau- ses Habsburg im konfessionellen Zeitalter (2 vols, 2003). Most recently he has edited a collection of documents on Gundaker von Liechtenstein als Grundherr in Niederösterreich und Mähren (2008). Introduction

Peter H. Wilson and R.J.W. Evans

By the time of its demise through the abdication of Francis II on 6 August 1806, the Holy Roman Empire was one of Europe’s oldest polities. Regard- less whether continuity was traced from Charlemagne’s assumption of an imperial title at Christmas 800, or Otto I’s ‘renovation’ of it in 962, the Empire still predated most other states by several centuries.1 France essentially dates from the late tenth century, with England a century younger. Spain only became a unified monarchy in 1492, and even then its component elements retained considerable autonomy. The principal elements of Scandinavia alternated between different empires, ruled either by one of themselves or by Russia, until 1917. The area later occupied by Russia underwent numerous upheavals before falling under the sway of the Rurik dynasty in 1477, founders of a new empire based on the grand duchy of Muscovy. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, created in 1569 out of a looser alliance, had been partitioned out of existence eleven years before Napoleon’s ultimatum compelled Francis to dissolve the Empire. In a world still dominated around 1800 largely by custom and precedent, the Empire’s antiquity was important to its ruling elite and many of its inhabitants. The much embroidered story of Charlemagne’s coronation, as well as the considerable collection of relics attributed to him, underpinned the ideology of ‘imperial translation’. This evolved across the Middle Ages and maintained that the Empire was the direct continuation of its ancient Roman forebear and, as such, was the last of the four ‘world monarchies’ prophesied in the Book of Daniel, destined to maintain order until God determined the Day of Judgement. Belief in the eschatological aspects lessened considerably after the mid-seventeenth century, but the imperial regalia remained important. New travelling cases were made for them in the later eighteenth century, and the Austrians went to considerable lengths to ensure they did not fall into Napoleon’s hands, obliging him to use replicas of Charlemagne’s sword and crown for his own coronation as emperor of the French in December 1804.

1 The best recent overview of the entire timespan is K. Herbers and H. Neuhaus, Das Heilige Römische Reich (2nd edn, Cologne, 2010). 2 peter h. wilson and r.j.w. evans

The Holy and Roman elements in turn supported the imperial, raising the emperor above all other European crowned heads. Emperor Rudolf II reluctantly agreed that the sultan was the heir to the old Byzantine, eastern Roman imperial title in 1606, but the significance of this concession was reduced by the de facto exclusion of the Muslim Ottoman empire from what was then still a Christian international system. Charles VI accepted Peter the Great’s proclamation of himself as Russian emperor in 1721 as the price for his alliance, but the tsar’s new title was still ranked below that of Holy Roman emperor. Even Napoleon accepted this in 1804, when the Habsburgs adopted their own hereditary imperial title to maintain parity with the upstart Bonapartes.2 In addition to being one of the oldest, the Empire was also among Europe’s largest states. It achieved its greatest extent during the reign of the Staufer dynasty (1138–1254), contracting thereafter through the loss of central and north-eastern Italy, Corsica and Sardinia. However, this process was far from one of steady, inevitable decline. Imperial frontiers pushed westwards into Flanders in the late fifteenth century, though that region’s exact relationship to the Empire remained in dispute into the eighteenth century. More significantly, the northern and eastern lands beyond the river Elbe, colonised from the twelfth century but largely peripheral to medieval politics, were integrated during the half century or so after 1490. Likewise, the surviving imperial jurisdiction south of the Alps revived as the imperial title passed to the Habsburg dynasty in the fifteenth century. This family was consistently elected to exercise imperial authority after 1438 with only one break in 1742–5 when Carl Albrecht of Bavaria was chosen instead as Charles VII. Subsequent contraction was slow and ambiguous, reflecting the persistence of older forms of shared or fragmented jurisdiction alongside new ideas about sovereign rights and natural frontiers. The Habsburgs lost control of Switzerland, their original family possession, in 1499, but the Swiss regarded themselves as merely exempt from the new imperial institutions that were being established after 1495, rather than independent from the Empire. Despite its frequent repetition in textbooks, the Peace of Westphalia did not sanction Swiss independence, but merely extended exemption from the jurisdiction of one of the two imperial supreme courts to Basle which had not acquired this privilege back in 1499. The imperial

2 P.H. Wilson, ‘Bolstering the Prestige of the Habsburgs: The End of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806’, International History Review, 28 (2006), 709–36. introduction 3 coat of arms was only removed from Swiss town halls around 1700 and it took several more decades before a fully distinct Swiss identity emerged. Separation of the Netherlands also took time, since the northern Protes- tant Dutch rebels initially rejected Spanish Habsburg rule, not the Empire, in their revolt after 1566. Failure of imperial mediation in the dispute was a factor encouraging full independence which received widespread de facto international recognition by 1609. The southern Netherlands, covering modern Belgium and Luxembourg, remained part of the Empire until overrun by French troops in the 1790s.3 Earlier French conquests were responsible for the other significant losses; principally the old Burgundian lands west of Switzerland known as the Franche Comté, as well as Alsace, both of which were annexed by France between the 1640s and 1670s. The duchy of Lorraine was also frequently occupied by France, before being detached from the Empire in 1738. By contrast, the northern and eastern frontiers remained relatively stable, disrupted only by the Prussian conquest of Silesia, then part of the Bohemian lands, now part of Poland, in 1740. Desperate for Prussian support in his private war with Habsburg Austria, Charles VII recognized Prussian possession of Silesia as a sovereign territory in 1744, though most maps continued to show it as part of the Empire. Even shorn of these lands, the Empire still encompassed 650,000 km2 in the late eighteenth century, making it the third largest state after the Ottoman and Russian empires. Its importance was magnified by its location at the heart of Europe, and by the extensive international connections of its leading families. The Habsburgs amassed their own dynastic empire, composed of lands both inside and beyond the Holy Roman imperial jurisdiction, culminating in the reign of Charles V (1519–58) whose dominions extended to Spain’s possessions in Africa and the New World. His partition of these lands between his son and younger brother created separate Spanish and Austrian Habs burg branches in 1558. The latter not only continued to obtain election to the Holy Roman title, but had also acquired new land beyond the Empire in western Hungary. These possessions tripled in size with the conquest of the more extensive Ottoman parts of Hungary after 1683, and were further enlarged by the acquisition of Spain’s former Italian possessions by 1714.4

3 See N. Mout’s chapter below. 4 See G. Pálffy’s chapter below, and R.J.W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy 1550–1700 (Oxford, 1979). 4 peter h. wilson and r.j.w. evans

This Habsburg empire remained distinct from the Holy Roman one, yet Habsburg imperial rule depended increasingly upon it. Re-election to the imperial title reflected the general recognition that only the Habsburgs, with their extensive hereditary possessions, were both worthy of the honour and capable of exercising it effectively. The Habsburgs were joined in the seventeenth century by the Branden- burg branch of the Hohenzollerns which acquired the former Teutonic Order lands in eastern Prussia in 1618. Generally accepted as being outside imperial jurisdiction, eastern Prussia gained international recognition as a sovereign territory in 1660, giving the Hohenzollerns greater prominence and providing a basis for their royal title created in 1700.5 However, the real breakthrough only occurred as Prussia participated in all three partitions of Poland, 1772–95, not only almost doubling its total territory, but now giving it more land outside the Empire than within it. Acquisition of such extensive possessions transformed both Austria and Prussia into separate European powers, contributing to the Empire’s declining signifi cance as an independent factor in international diplomacy during the second half of the eighteenth century. Other German dynasties also acquired international status, without establishing separate territorial empires. Marriage between German princely houses and other European rulers was not uncommon during the Middle Ages and reflected the then prevailing cosmopolitan aspect of the Empire as an expression of a single, universal Christendom without clear boundaries. This was eroded from the later sixteenth century by the emergence of new concepts of Europe demarcated by sovereign jurisdictions, raising questions about the status of the German princes who lacked full sovereignty, yet were clearly more than merely the Empire’s aristocracy. Those who could preferred to resolve this problem after the later seventeenth century by acquiring a royal title. Prussia’s new title was one example of this and ensured greater prominence for the Hohen- zollerns, for instance already during the peace congress ending the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713. The Habsburgs could dispense with an equivalent for Austria, since they already possessed Bohemian and Hun- garian crowns, made hereditary in 1627 and 1687 respectively. Rulers of other German lands within the Empire capitalized on their attractions as candidates for Europe’s elective monarchies, or as potential marriage

5 On this, see most recently K. Friedrich and S. Smart (ed.), The Cultivation of Monarchy and the Rise of Berlin. Brandenburg-Prussia, 1700 (Farnham, 2010). introduction 5 partners for hereditary crowned heads: the semi-regal status of German princes made them acceptable in both cases, yet they also appeared less threatening to the native elites of their prospective kingdoms owing to the small size of their German possessions. Thus, Poland was linked to Saxony (1697–1763), Britain to Hanover (1714–1837) and Denmark with a variety of small northern principalities (1448–1863), without any of these countries being absorbed into its ruler’s German principality.6 Other European states were linked to the Empire by extensive intermarriage with German dynasties. Sweden was tied by successive marriages after 1574 to the Palat- inate, Holstein-Gottorp, Brandenburg-Prussia, and Hessen-Kassel, while after 1716 the Russian Romanovs married into the families ruling Meck- lenburg, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Holstein-Gottorp, Hessen-Darmstadt, Württemberg and, most famously, Anhalt-Zerbst which provided Empress Catherine the Great.7 The establishment of almost continuous Habsburg rule after 1438 was part of a wider process that gave the Empire its distinctive early modern shape around 1500. This used to be discussed as ‘imperial reform’, a rubric which was restricted to efforts by the Empire’s leading churchman, Berthold von Henneberg, archbishop of Mainz 1484–1504, to redefine the relationship between the emperor and his leading vassals. Increasingly, this term is now understood to describe a broader process of institutional consolidation and the dissemination of a common political culture during the century after about 1470.8 Nonetheless, most still regard the meeting of the imperial diet (Reichstag) staged by Henneberg in 1495 as a significant milestone and it remains customary, as also in the case of this volume, to take this date as the start of early modernity, both for the Empire and for German history.9 Imperial reform, understood as the reordering of power relations within the Empire, was essentially complete by 1555 and produced a more clearly defined hierarchy amongst the rulers of the (then) 136 major ecclesiastical and 180 secular fiefs, as well as the (then) 83 imperial cities which

6 For these ‘personal unions’, see the chapters by R. Frost and A. Perłakowski below, and B. Simms and T. Riotte (ed.), The Hanoverian Dimension in British History, 1714–1837 (Cambridge, 2007). 7 C. Scharf, Katharina II., Deutschland und die Deutschen (Mainz, 1995). 8 H. Angermeier, Die Reichsreform, 1410–1555. Die Staatsproblematik in Deutschland zwischen Mittelalter und Gegenwart (Munich, 1984); P. Moraw, Von offener Verfassung zu gestalteter Verdichtung. Das Reich im späten Mittelalter, 1250 bis 1490 (Berlin, 1985). 9 H. Angermeier, ‘Der Wormser Reichstag 1495—ein europäisches Ereignis’, Historische Zeitschrift, 261 (1995), 739–68. 6 peter h. wilson and r.j.w. evans collectively constituted the imperial Estates (Reichsstände) sharing in the exercise of many of the emperor’s prerogatives.10 Actual control of the secular fiefs was in the hereditary possession of only 60 or so families, a few of whom, like the Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns, held many fiefs simultaneously. Members of these families also controlled many of the ecclesiastical fiefs through their election as prince-abbots or prince-bishops by the relevant abbey or cathedral chapter. The remaining church fiefs were usually governed by members of the 350 families of imperial knights (Reichsritter) who collectively held around 1,500 minor fiefs (with a combined area of only 10,500 km2) which escaped incorporation within one of the larger principalities by 1530. The imperial hierarchy was demarcated by titles ranging from elector (an elite group with the exclusive right to choose each emperor), prince, landgrave, margrave, down through abbot and count to baron for the imperial knights who lacked representation in the new institutions created around 1500 for the imperial Estates to share power with the emperor. The composition of this hierarchy underwent considerable change between 1495 and 1806. The number of electors rose from the original seven designated in 1356 to eight (1648), then nine (1692) and finally 10 (1803); in each case through the promotion of a prince to this status.11 The number of full princes also increased, chiefly through the elevation of counts and barons whose numbers correspondingly fell, despite other, inferior nobles being given these distinctions. The ecclesiastical fiefs also underwent significant changes, largely through their ‘secularization’ or incorporation within, or conversion to, secular fiefs. This process was already well underway before the Protestant Reformation of 1517, and was consolidated by the inter- confessional Peace of Augsburg (1555) and the Peace of Westphalia.12 The surviving 67 were abolished altogether in the Empire’s last internal reor- ganization of 1802–3.13

10 For further discussion of the imperial constitution and how it has been interpreted, see P.H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806 (2nd edn, Basingstoke, 2011). 11 A. Gotthard, Säulen des Reiches. Die Kurfürsten im frühneuzeitlichen Reichsverband (2 vols., Husum, 1999); L. Pelizaeus, Der Aufstieg Württembergs und Hessens zur Kurwürde, 1692–1803 (Frankfurt, 2000). In addition, votes were also redistributed to different princes, most notably in 1547 and 1623/48. Two electorates were merged in 1777. In 1803 four new electorates were created, but two of the existing ones were suppressed. 12 See L. Höbelt’s chapter below. 13 The literature on this is reviewed by K. Härter, ‘Zweihundert Jahre nach dem europäi schen Umbruch von 1803’, Zeitschrift für historische Forschung, 33 (2006), 89–115. introduction 7

These developments shifted the internal balance of power in favour of a select group of leading families ruling conglomerates of major fiefs as hereditary possessions. The Habsburgs amassed the largest clutch of territories, adding Bohemia with its dependencies to their Austrian and Burgundian lands in 1526.14 The Wittelsbachs held the second largest area around 1500 and were the Habsburgs’ only serious rivals as potential candidates for the imperial crown. Wittelsbach influence was compromised by successive internal splits, creating several often antagonistic branches, of which those in the Palatinate and Bavaria were the most important. The Saxon Wettins were also divided into electoral and ducal branches, the latter subsequently fragmenting into still smaller lines in the seventeenth century. Much of the Habsburgs’ success in managing the Empire derived from playing the rival Wittelsbach and Wettin branches against each other. The Guelph family had been major players in the high Middle Ages, but likewise lost influence by partitioning their lands to sustain their numerous male offspring.15 They ruled several north German duchies of which Lüneburg—better known from the mid-seventeenth century after its capital Hanover—eventually recovered influence around 1690. The Hohenzollern family still ran a poor fifth in this group around 1500, con- fined largely to extensive, yet sparsely populated lands on the Empire’s north-eastern periphery. Though the acquisition of eastern Prussia raised the family’s international profile in 1618, a more significant factor in their growing influence in the Empire was the Habsburgs’ decision to push Brandenburg as a buffer against Swedish influence at the end of the Thirty Years War. The Westphalian settlement nearly doubled the Hohenzol- lerns’ possessions in the Empire by assigning them the lion’s share of the secularized ecclesiastical fiefs. A more numerous second rank of middling princes lagged considerably behind the big five, primarily ruling duchies and other principalities in southern and western Germany like Baden, Württemberg, Hessen and Nassau. The list of princely possessions will be familiar to many readers from the names of the future German states which emerged with full sovereignty in the seven months following Austria’s disastrous defeat by France at Austerlitz in December 1805. The decision of sixteen middling and minor princes to renounce the Empire in favour of the dubious security of the

14 See the chapters in section 2 below. 15 For this practice and its consequences see P.S. Fichtner, Protestantism and Primogeni- ture in Early Modern Germany (New Haven, 1989). 8 peter h. wilson and r.j.w. evans new French-led Confederation of the Rhine in July 1806 was a decisive factor in Francis II’s decision to abdicate the following month. Those principalities which survived the upheavals of the Napoleonic era joined Austria and Prussia in forming the German Confederation in 1815. This shared several important similarities with the old imperial constitution, but lacked the Holy and Roman elements, as well as the lower reaches of the internal hierarchy of lords and free cities, all of which had been absorbed (‘media- tized’) within the surviving 34 princely and 4 civic states. These, moreover, now enjoyed full sovereignty, combining in a federal structure on the basis of (formal) equality, rather than exercising prerogatives which varied according to social status as under the old Empire. The struggle between the two leading German powers dominated the Confederation until Prussia’s victory led to Austria’s exclusion, as well as the annexation of several smaller states. The process generally known as German ‘unification’ was completed with the proclamation of a new German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles on 18 January 1871 following Prussia’s defeat of French opposition. * The circumstances of the old Empire’s demise and the subsequent struggle to control its former territories exerted a long and generally malign influence over its history. While never uncontested, mainstream historiography presented the Empire as having failed to provide Germans with a viable nation state, condemning them to internal strife and foreign invasion, and depriving them of what many considered their rightful influence within Europe and the world. The course of German history was compared with that of other countries to find where it had ‘gone wrong’. Usually, blame was assigned to the later medieval emperors for failing to establish greater central authority. Pro-Prussian and Protestant writers also criticized the Catholic Habsburgs for subordinating ‘German’ interests to their dynastic ambitions by expanding their own territorial empire south and eastwards, rather than providing firmer leadership within the Empire itself. It was left to Prussia to step into this void and fulfil its ‘historic mission’ by forging national unity. Many accepted that this unity had come relatively late compared to other, especially western European states. Yet, it was widely believed that the Second Empire founded in 1871 had achieved a unique solution to industrialization, urbanization and the other problems of modernity, enabling it to emerge as a world power by 1914 whilst preserving a conservative social and political order. introduction 9

The experience of the First and especially the Second World War radi- cally altered this interpretation. German history was now seen as departing on its own deviate ‘special path’ (Sonderweg) away from western, democratic development and towards the horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust.16 The more extreme versions of this interpretation were advanced in Britain and the US after 1945, especially by émigré historians, but broadly similar arguments were presented by German scholars influenced by new forms of social history in the 1960s and 1970s. Unfortunately, all generally wove the older interpretations of the Holy Roman Empire into their critique of nineteenth- and twentieth-century German history. The Empire’s alleged failures had compelled Bismarck and others to force the pace of unification, causing a fatal disjunction as Germany’s rapid industrialization was not matched by political or social progress. Reappraisal of the old Empire only began in the late 1960s and was largely the work of scholars based in what was then the western Federal Republic, founded in 1949.17 Research initially concentrated on constitutional, legal and institutional history, but broadened from the mid-1970s to include some social questions, though the full impact of this departure is only now being realized.18 Much of this writing was influenced by the concerns and intellectual life of the Federal Republic and (often unconsciously) was connected with a general desire to (re-)discover a more democratic and, perhaps, thereby more acceptable German past. A further impulse was provided by West Germany’s role in the process of European economic and political integration initiated by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. These processes considerably shifted attitudes to both ‘state’ and ‘nation’ in the German present and past, largely rejecting older nationalism and authoritarianism. That the change in attitudes has not been retarded by the reunification of the two post-war Germanies in 1990 is undoubtedly due to the central place the reunited Germany has played

16 W.W. Hagen, ‘Descent of the Sonderweg: Hans Rosenberg and the History of Old- Regime Prussia’, Central European History, 24 (1991), 24–50. 17 The new direction was signalled by K.O.v. Aretin, Heiliges Römisches Reich, 1776–1806 (2 vols., Wiesbaden, 1967). For examples and summaries of this trend, see the special issue devoted to the Empire in the Journal of Modern History, 58 (1986), supplement volume. 18 As can be gauged from the contributions to S. Wendehorst and S. Westphal (ed.), Lesebuch Altes Reich (Munich, 2006). For the subsequent impact of the new cultural history of the 1990s and beyond, see B. Stollberg-Rilinger, Des Kaisers alte Kleider. Verfassungs- geschichte und Symbolsprache des Alten Reiches (Munich, 2008). 10 peter h. wilson and r.j.w. evans in the closer integration of the European Union in 1992 and its subsequent eastwards expansion. Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that opinion remains divided on the old Empire.19 There is general, if sometimes grudging acceptance of the findings published since the later 1960s which demonstrate the relative effectiveness of many imperial institutions and their ability to both defuse internal tension and coordinate defence against external attack after 1495. While many still dispute the effectiveness of these institutions for the eighteenth century, most accept that the earlier verdict of imperial impotence cannot be applied to the sixteenth or much of the seventeenth century. More serious disagreements remain on the overall definition of what the Empire was. This question has mainly exercised historians based in modern Germany, but should also concern those outside it, including those working on the histories of other countries, because much non-German- language historiography remains dominated by out-dated interpretations of the Empire deriving largely from nineteenth-century research. Mat- ters are not helped by conflicting evidence. Imperial law was never fully codified, while the imperial constitution remained a collection of treaties, charters, privileges and precedent, always open to different interpretations. The situation grew more complex as the Protestant Reformation shattered the medieval unity of religion and law by introducing competing versions of Christianity. It is thus possible to find evidence supporting a variety of interpretations of what the Empire meant to its inhabitants and outside observers. The current literature is particularly rich, extensive and nuanced. None- theless, it is possible to identify four competing views. Popular perceptions remain rooted in the older, negative assessments of the Empire as a moribund, Gothic relic preventing social, economic and political progress. These perceptions have shifted somewhat with the flood of accessible overviews and several major exhibitions accompanying the bicentenary of Francis’ abdication in 2006.20 However, acceptance of newer research

19 For example, the diverging opinions expressed in M. Schnettger (ed.), Imperium Romanum—irregulare corpus—Teutscher Reichs-Staat (Mainz, 2002). 20 H. Schilling et al. (ed.), Altes Reich und neue Staaten, 1495 bis 1806 (Dresden, 2006); B. Mazohl-Wallnig, Zeitenwende 1806. Das Heilige Römische Reich und die Geburt des modernen Europa (Cologne, 2005); B. Stollberg-Rilinger, Das Heilige Römische Reich deutscher Nation vom Ende des Mittelalters bis 1806 (Munich, 2006). See also T.A. Brady, German His- tories in the Age of Reformations, 1400–1650 (Cambridge, 2009); R.J.W. Evans et al. (ed.), The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806 (Oxford, 2011). introduction 11 is not helped by the persistence of older perspectives in influential works which still present the Empire as delaying German unity.21 The second position accepts the more positive reappraisal of imperial institutions, but concludes the Empire was neither a state, nor particularly effective in dealing with serious problems. According to Heinz Schilling, imperial reform left it only a ‘partially modernized imperial system’, while Wolfgang Reinhard rejects any attempt to trace continuity from the old Empire to the modern Federal Republic and European Union.22 Propo- nents of this position have grown more strident in reaction to an alternative view advanced by Georg Schmidt since the late 1990s that the Empire was not merely a state, but should be called the first German nation state.23 A fundamental element of Schmidt’s approach is his distinction between the wider framework of imperial jurisdiction and the German-speaking core regions which he sees as being integrated through imperial reform into a ‘complementary Empire-State and federal nation’. Though Schmidt is at pains to stress that he does not want to be seen as the ‘official historiographer of the Federal Republic’, his approach nonetheless restricts the early modern Empire to the area now occupied by reunited Germany, and largely excludes the Habsburg lands, including Bohemia, as well as the Netherlands and imperial Italy. Schmidt’s emphasis on the German aspect of the Empire is rejected by the fourth perspective represented (with some differences) primarily by Peter Claus Hartmann and Johannes Burkhardt.24 They agree with Schmidt that the Empire was a state, rejecting Schilling’s analysis for

21 Heinrich August Winkler, Der lange Weg nach Westen. Vol.I: Deutsche Geschichte vom Ende des Alten Reiches bis zum Untergang der Weimarer Republik. Vol.II: Deutsche Geschichte vom Dritten Reich bis zur Wiedervereinigung (Munich, 2000), now trans. as Ger- many. The Long Road West (2 vols., Oxford, 2006–7). 22 H. Schilling, ‘Reichs-Staat und frühneuzeitliche Nation der Deutschen oder teilmodernisiertes Reichssystem’, Historische Zeitschrift, 272 (2001), 377–95; W. Reinhard, ‘Früh- moderner Staat und deutsches Monstrum. Die Entstehung des modernen Staates und das Alte Reich’, Zeitschrift für historische Forschung, 29 (2002), 339–57. Broadly similar views are presented by A. Gotthard, Das Alte Reich, 1495–1806 (3rd edn, Darmstadt, 2006). 23 These ideas were presented in full in his Geschichte des Alten Reiches. Staat und Nation in der Frühen Neuzeit (Munich, 1999), and subsequently refined in response to criticism and summarized in ‘Das frühneuzeitliche Reich—komplementärer Staat und föderative Nation’, Historische Zeitschrift, 273 (2001), 371–99. See also the same author’s new history of the eighteenth century: Wandel durch Vernunft. Deutsche Geschichte im 18. Jahrhundert (Munich, 2009). 24 P.C. Hartmann, Das Heilige Römische Reich deutscher Nation in der Neuzeit, 1486–1806 (Stuttgart, 2005); J. Burkhardt, Das Reformationsjahrhundert. Deutsche Geschichte zwischen Medienrevolution und Institutionsbildung, 1517–1617 (Stuttgart, 2002), and his Vollendung und Neuorientierung des frühmodernen Reiches, 1648–1763 (Stuttgart, 2006). 12 peter h. wilson and r.j.w. evans perpetuating the older interpretation of the Empire’s history as one purely of deficits: the lack of strong central institutions, clear borders, uniform legal and fiscal systems, a permanent army, and the like. However, the Empire was not purely German and its identity remained broader, more cosmopolitan. Furthermore, the Empire had ‘already solved’ (Burkhardt) fundamental problems of political organization by becoming a ‘Central Europe of the regions’ (Hartmann). This interpretation picks up from the numerous positive assessments of the Empire by external observers in the seventeenth and eighteenth century who saw its constitution as a possible framework for wider European peace.25 However, it arguably goes too far by suggesting that the Empire had already tested the solutions now being implemented through the European Union. * This volume does not pretend to pronounce a definitive verdict in what is a healthy and beneficial historical debate. However, it is clear that the discussion of the Empire can only progress if it is extended to those studying its non-German elements, as well as its neighbours. Moreover, research on these aspects needs to be integrated with that by scholars working on neglected aspects like the Empire’s visual and material culture. Hence the chapters which follow break new ground in in their collective exploration of aspects of cross-border and transnational interaction, political and diplomatic, social and cultural. A first group of essays concentrates on important turning-points, especially 1648 and 1806. Some political scientists are nowadays fond of identi- fying the peace of Westphalia as a key stage in the evolution of the modern state. Yet the politics of the Reich, as the chief locus of the settlements at Münster and Osnabrück, show this to be a complete misconception of the way the ‘Westphalian system’ actually operated after 1648 (see the chapter by Lothar Höbelt). In fact Westphalia secured a notable measure of security and loyalty for the Empire until the final crisis of its challenge by Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. It could even be a blueprint for an ideal European confederation of states in the thinking of a visionary like the Abbé St Pierre (Peter Schröder). Moreover, the demise of the Reich in 1806 was, as Wolfgang Burgdorf shows, a far more traumatic shock to contemporaries than historians used to allow.

25 See Schröder’s chapter below. introduction 13

The second section turns to patterns of the rulership of the emperors themselves. From the fifteenth century the Habsburgs maintained two parallel structures of authority: they reigned as elected Kaiser over the entire Reich, while governing Austria and then also the Bohemian lands as hereditary sovereigns more or less separately, though these were alike component realms of that Reich. The resultant complexities (only enhanced by simultaneous Habsburg rule over other, non-imperial territories) are here examined in terms of the functioning of the imperial court (Jeroen Duindam), which increasingly operated as an Austrian institution, though without ever losing its wider role as a focus for politics and society in the Reich as a whole. As the crucial seventeenth-century evolution shows, linkages between the Habsburg Monarchy and the rest of the Empire remained intimate, even as a new kind of power balance emerged in the decades before and after the Westphalian settlement (Thomas Winkelbauer). For Bohemia too, wider imperial connections retained greater importance than has commonly been allowed (Jaroslav Pánek), and in particular the relationship generated significant issues of status and authority among the highest aristocrats (Petr Matˇa). Olivier Chaline uses one case-study to illustrate how family ties could continue to attach Bohemia to other parts of the Reich. The third section explores areas which, like Austria and Bohemia, lay on the margin of the Reich, but which were remoter from Habsburg influence and thus may qualify for present purposes, in the vogue locution, as ‘peripheries’. Many of the more northerly parts of the Italian peninsula still belonged within the Reich, and the largely forgotten story of the linkage between that so-called Reichsitalien and the rest of the Empire is analysed by Blythe Raviola. Thus the rise of the future monarchy of Savoy took place largely inside the bounds of the Reich, and is here compared with the parallel case of Brandenburg-Prussia (Sven Externbrink). At the opposite edge of the historic Holy Roman Empire stood the northern Netherlandish territories (Nicolette Mout) which came together in the sixteenth century as the United Provinces and finally emancipated themselves from Habsburg and imperial tutelage at the peace of Westphalia. A fuller treatment of this subject would need to attend also to certain other kinds of mixed case. Thus Lorraine, which long looked to the Empire for protection from France’s expansive designs, was finally incorporated into the latter in the mid-eighteenth century, but ironically only when the heir to the duchy married into the expiring Habsburg dynasty, to relaunch it as ‘Habsburg- Lorraine’, in a bewildering deal by which his own hereditary lands were swapped for Tuscany. 14 peter h. wilson and r.j.w. evans

By that time the central Italian grand duchy no longer belonged to the Empire by any stretch of the imagination. Yet Tuscany and Savoy, like the independent Dutch republic, continued to have myriad contacts with lands inside the Reich, and section four examines some equivalent issues in relation to three large neighbours of the Holy Roman Empire. Two chapters deal with Poland.-Lithuania. Robert Frost compares the Com- monwealth and the Reich as purveyors of armed forces, alongside connected issues of security and defensive policy. Adam Perłakowski considers the operation of such military factors at the time of the Great Northern War, when the fate of Poland-Lithuania became linked to the designs of a German ruler, since from 1697 onwards the Saxon elector was also Polish king. The monarchs of Denmark-Norway also held territories within the Empire, and Thomas Munck investigates the resultant cultural impact in the age of Enlightenment. A variant of the same paradigm was the case of Hungary (Géza Pálffy): although Habsburgs ruled over part of that kingdom from 1526 and the whole of it by the eighteenth century, there was no constitutional nexus—at least until the vague generalities proclaimed by the Pragmatic Sanction after 1723. Hungary remained a separate state; indeed, it possessed its own imperial traditions of a kind. A final section addresses matters of visual culture. Thomas Kaufmann examines the large question of whether the Holy Roman Empire constituted a distinctive artistic region, in light of the shifting geography of its most important creative centres. Evidently one major aspect of this was the patronage of the Habsburgs—who had their own agenda as propo- nents of baroque Catholicism—and the relationship between this and productivity in other parts of the Reich. Friedrich Polleross considers the nature of imperial portraiture as a genre where the Habsburgs, as an international dynasty, contributed to the overall European evolution. One crucial feature of such self-presentation, whether on canvas or in formal real-life encounters, was the display of jewels. Whereas the aesthetic and artistic dimensions of such attributes of princely status have often been discussed, Kim Siebenhüner tells the much less familiar tale of how the jewels were acquired and where they actually came from. In so doing she uncovers wide economic and social linkages which fully confirm the international character of this volume’s subject. * As Heinz Duchhardt suggests in his concluding reflections to the volume, the Holy Roman Empire played a key role in the stability of Europe, even as it generated the two great powers whose rivalry contributed greatly introduction 15 to undermining that stability at home and abroad. This leads us back to one great paradox of the Old Reich which recent work has only served to underline. On the one hand its German character was progressively enhanced, and the epithet ‘deutsch’ came to be applied to more and more of its structures and activities over the period discussed in this book.26 Yet on the other hand the same period witnessed the decline of any common imperial statehood, as the leading territorial princes within the Empire expanded and consolidated their authority. The attributes of a national polity thus increasingly coexisted with those of a divided and contested sovereignty. Did the Reich then, as a consequence, became at the same time both less and more European? Related to this is a final key comparative issue. The revived critical interest in the Holy Roman Empire which is reflected in the present collection began decades ago largely as a domestic concern of central-European historians. Since then a debate about the history of empire has exploded into prominence worldwide. Until very recently the latter, as an essentially post-colonial enterprise, paid little or no attention to the former. That has now begun to change, both through a rediscovery of the First Reich as the starting-point for Germany’s later experience of supposedly separate development in the modern period, the famous Sonderweg which has already featured in this Introduction, and through comparison of German and other experiences of empire during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.27 This book will show, we hope, that both those approaches can yield rich rewards when applied to transnational study of the Holy Roman Empire between the age of Luther and that of Napoleon.

26 See esp. Schmidt, Geschichte des Alten Reichs; id., ‘Die “deutsche Freiheit” und der Westfälische Friede’, in R.G. Asch et al (ed.), Frieden und Krieg in der Frühen Neuzeit (Munich, 2001), 323–47; id., Wandel durch Vernunft. Deutsche Geschichte im 18. Jahrhundert (Munich, 2009); id. (ed.), Die deutsche Nation im frühneuzeitlichen Europa. Politische Ord- nung und kulturelle Identität? (Munich, 2010). 27 Important markers are James Muldoon, Empire and Order: The Concept of Empire, 800–1800 (Basingstoke,1999), and Franz Bosbach and Hermann Hiery (ed.), Imperium— Empire—Reich: ein Konzept politischer Herrschaft im deutsch-britischen Vergleich; An Anglo-German Comparison of a Concept of Rule (Munich, 1999). Cf. most recently: Michael Perraudin and Jurgen Zimmerer (ed.), German Colonialism and National Identity (New York, 2010).

Section ονε

Turning Points

The Westphalian Peace: Augsburg Mark II or Celebrated Armistice?

Lothar Höbelt

Historians certainly owe a debt of gratitude to the Congress of Münster and Osnabrück, simply because it left an impressive paper trail. If sometimes important decisions are still shrouded in mystery because they were conducted orally by secret emissaries, the long-drawn-out nature of the Westphalian negotiations gave rise to an unprecedented series of reports, minutes and memoranda. Some of this material may remind readers of Count Maximilian Trauttmansdorff’s complaint ‘that at court they are very diligent in sending out large memoranda about small matters, but in serious ones either no answer arrives at all, or at best no settled resolution, such as I require’.1 But even where issues or authors seem less important, the insights they provide may still prove worthwhile to generations motivated by a different set of priorities or ‘Fragestellungen’. At very least this wealth of documentation resembles a sort of random opinion poll that gave many players a voice, if not necessarily a say, in affairs. However, if there is no doubt that the peace of Westphalia deserves all the attention it gets, from the splendid edition of documents by Konrad Repgen and his pupils to the Exhibition organized in 1998,2 it must still be open to grave doubt whether it started a ‘system’ or fulfilled the requirements for any of the attempts to infuse it with metaphysical ‘meaning’.

A Peace to End All Religious Wars

Of course, many of the clauses of the treaties of Münster and, in particular, Osnabrück served as a sort of surrogate constitution for the Holy Roman Empire which—like Britain—cherished rights and traditions but never

1 ‘. . . daß man zu hoff in kleinen sachen grosse guetachten heraußzuschickhen gar fleis- sig, in schweren folgt entweder kein antwort oder doch kein solche bestendige resolution, wie ich wohl verlangte.’ 2 Acta Pacis Westphalicae [APW], ed. M. Braubach and K. Repgen (Münster, since 1962); K. Bussbach and H. Schilling (ed.), 1648: War and Peace in Europe (3 vols, Münster, 1998); also as eid. (ed.), Krieg und Frieden in Europa. Katalog zur Europarats-Ausstellung Münster/ Osnabrück 1998 (n.p., 1998). 20 lothar höbelt really bothered to have a proper constitution at all. However, this ‘pseudo- constitutional’ function of the Westphalian settlement needs to be qualified to avoid misunderstandings. Most of the issues regarded as properly constitutional by any nineteenth-century audience, were deferred to be discussed at an imperial diet supposed to be held half a year after the peace had been ratified. Those issues that affected the working of the Empire as a governing machine included above all its law-making capacity (i.e. the crucial question if, when and where majority decisions were actually binding)3 and the prerogatives of the emperor (i.e. whether the princes of the Empire or just the electors were going to have a say in formulating the ‘capitulations’ to be signed by every emperor-elect). Of course, these ‘negotia remissa’ were never actually finished. It has even been ingeniously, yet convincingly, argued that finishing them would have been a big blow for the institutionalization of the Empire as it would have deprived the permanent diet of Regensburg of its raison d’être.4 There is an old cliché popular as a short-hand summing-up of the results of the Thirty Years War that said the Habsburgs lost in their capacity as emperors, but won in their capacity as territorial rulers. The latter aspect has to some extent been ‘deconstructed’ along with the concept of ‘absolutism’.5 The former has been eroded, too. There was a long-term decline of imperial influence only when compared with the exaggerated fears and notions of Habsburg absolutism, current during the heyday of Wallenstein’s armies. The Empire, as Georg Schmidt has argued, returned to a late sixteenth-century equilibrium—with more rather than less imperial influence over formerly ‘distant’ (reichsfern) parts of the Empire. Or, put differently, the story that the emperor had been disempowered in favour of the diet turns out to be a fairy tale.6 If the years immediately before and after 1648 seemed to indicate a growing rift between the emperor and his Empire, that was no indicator of long-term constitutional developments, but a result of short-term military and political calculations. The imperial circles and their defensive endeavours, for example, a prime example of self-government on a federalist basis, were cold-shouldered by

3 As Axel Gotthard, Der Augsburger Religionsfrieden (Münster, 2004), 438, puts it so well: ‘At the imperial diet German liberties were spelt in Latin: Quod omnes tangit!’ 4 Johannes Burkhardt, Vollendung und Neuorientierung des frühmodernen Reiches, 1648– 1763 (Stuttgart, 2006), 79. 5 Wolfgang Reinhard, Geschichte der Staatsgewalt (Munich, 1999), 51. 6 Georg Schmidt, Der Dreißigjährige Krieg (2nd edn., Munich, 1996), 97–8; Axel Got- thard, Das Alte Reich, 1495–1806 (Darmstadt, 2003), 104. the westphalian peace 21

Ferdinand III in the 1650s (when they seemed to be directed primarily against Spain), but cherished by his son Leopold I during the 1680s (when they proved useful against both the French and the Turks). Indeed, by the 1690s Louis XIV found himself reduced to paying subsidies to select German princes for not fighting him more than necessary, i.e. not sending more troops than their quota.7 There was one part of the old cliché that holds up to scrutiny: West- phalia made the Empire safe for Protestantism—and the Habsburg lands unsafe (except for some 200 Lower Austrian nobles and three giant wooden churches in Silesia). It undoubtedly succeeded in removing religion as the prime bone of contention from the political agenda of the Empire by providing an authoritative reading of the most important issues that had been left unsolved over the last century. It once and for all defined the future status of the prince bishoprics by pragmatically substituting an updated ‘Normaljahr’ for any solution based on legal interpretations; it finally accepted Calvinists as a sub-species of Lutherans; and it stipulated a system of concurrent majorities in all confessional disputes, thus preventing the Protestant minority of princes and electors from being out- voted at the diet in matters of religion. All three provisions, incidentally, were solutions that symbolized a very un-Germanic triumph of expediency over principle. The peace of Westphalia thus certainly deserves credit as a revised and improved version of the ‘Religious Peace’ of Augsburg, ironing out all of its remaining ambiguities. None of these provisions were actually all that original. But the fact that they had never been formally acknowledged by the Catholics had served to destabilize the politics of the Empire. In 1629, the infamous Edict of Restitution had tried to make use of that loophole to upset the confessional and territorial balance of the Empire. The Edict of Restitution was certainly bad politics. It alienated large sectors of Germany, in return for doubtful minor gains. Yet, the reading that it was the Edict of Restitu- tion that proved the downfall of Ferdinand II’s predominant position rests unproven. The victims of the Edict were powerless to do much about it. Gustavus Adolphus’ decision to intervene in Germany had little to do with it. His alliance with the electors of Brandenburg and Saxony (both of whom would have preferred neutrality) owed more to his strong-arm

7 Winfried Dotzauer, Die deutschen Reichskreise in der Verfassung des Alten Reiches und ihr Eigenleben (Darmstadt, 1989); Janine Fayard, ‘Attempts to Build a “Third party” in North Germany, 1690–4’, in R. Hatton (ed.), Louis XIV and Europe (London, 1976), 213–40. 22 lothar höbelt tactics—and those of his rival Tilly—than to any confessional grievances.8 Above all, the peace of Prague in 1635 and the concurrent start of a full-scale war against France had already led to a revocation of the Edict in all but a few minor aspects. Much has been made of the incomplete nature of the amnesty offered to formerly hostile Protestant princes in the Prague settlement.9 Again, it may have been unfair and petty to deprive the duke of Württemberg of the income from his abbeys or arbitrate against the counts of Baden- Durlach in their dispute with their Catholic cousins, but those were hardly matters weighty enough to prevent a pacification of the Empire in the years following 1635. The only armed opponent, Hesse-Cassel, was offered quite attractive terms in 1638—and turned them down not because of their intrinsic disadvantages, but because the fortunes of war had changed in the meantime and seemed to offer the chance of further rich pickings at the expense of the neighbouring bishops. The different branches of the house of Hanover (who had switched sides several times) were finally bought off with the peace of Goslar in early 1642.10 In fact, the most important of the German princes excluded from the Prague settlement was not an unruly heretic, but a stubborn Catholic, the Archbishop of Trier, who had committed the arch-sin of accepting Richelieu’s protection and who turned down all offers of restitution—at a certain political price, of course—with a ‘Vade, Satanas . . .!’11 The reason his vassals increasingly deserted the emperor’s cause was not the iniquities of imperial policy, but his inability to defend his loyal followers against enemy incursions: Protestants did not switch sides to further their denominational interests, but they withdrew into neutrality after having been repeatedly overrun by Swedish armies. That proved to

8 Michael Kaiser, Politik und Kriegführung. Maximilian von Bayern, Tilly und die Kath- olische Liga im Dreißigjährigen Krieg (Münster, 1999), 438 ff. 9 In that respect I respectfully disagree with Georg Schmidt, Geschichte des Alten Reiches. Staat und Nation in der Frühen Neuzeit, 1495–1806 (Munich, 1999), 169; but not with his conclusions in Dreißigjähriger Krieg, 60, where the emphasis is much more on Ferdinand’s indolent attitude towards Sweden. The situation is characterized very well by Ronald G. Asch, The Thirty Years War. The Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618–48 (Basingstoke, 1997), 116. 10 Michael Reimann, Der Goslarer Friede von 1642 (Hildesheim, 1979); For the Hessian negotiations see my Ferdinand III, Friedenskaiser wider Willen (Graz, 2008). The controversial intervention of Ferdinand III is to be found in Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv Wien (HHStA), Friedensakten 29, fol. 24 (2 Sept. 1638); Heinrich Brockhaus, Der Kurfürstentag zu Nürnberg im Jahre 1640 (Leipzig, 1883), 18–21. 11 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. Lat. 7006, fol. 115 (26 Feb. 1638). the westphalian peace 23 be the decisive element in 1641 with Brandenburg, in 1645 with Saxony and in 1647 with Bavaria, not counting smaller fry like Pfalz-Neuburg or even Margrave William of Baden-Baden, who held a commission as an imperial general but nevertheless saw himself compelled to come to an arrangement with the French in 1642.12 It was not bigoted politics that was punished by military disaster, but military set-backs that led to political isolation. If the Prague settlement harmed the war effort of the emperor, paradoxically, it was not because its terms were too harsh, but because they were too mild, as they prevented imperial generals from any longer resorting to the sort of contributions Wallenstein had levied with impu- nity upon all and sundry.13 The only way the limitations of the Prague settlement can be blamed for the continuation of the war is by linking the Swedish decision to carry on with the treatment meted out to her former German allies. Yet, that turns out to be hardly more than a propaganda exercise. Sweden was far from being passionately interested in the restitution of the martyrs of the good cause; she simply chose to withdraw behind the screen of her demand for a general amnesty whenever she wanted to delay negotiations (and would do so again in 1646–7). But from the very beginning, in 1636, Oxenstierna had made it clear that he was not going to turn down any settlement because of the amnesty—and there is no reason to think that he ever changed his mind.14 The way Sweden fought for compensation for her allies was not amnesty but ‘satisfaction’—the remuneration of the officers who had fought for her, a touching sign of corporate loyalty designed above all with a view to keeping them sweet to fight another day, if needs be. The way to cut the Gordian knot and end the war in 1635 or 1636 was not constitutional small-print or irenic tolerance, but to prof- fer the celebrated 50 tons of gold (5 million taler) to pay off the Swedish army that later sealed the 1648 settlement. It was in that respect that the

12 Renate Leffers, Die Neutralitätspolitik des Pfalzgrafen Wolfgang Wilhelm als Herzog von Jülich-Berg in der Zeit von 1636–43 (Neustadt/Aisch, 1971); Bogislav von Chemnitz, Der Königlich Schwedische in Teutschland geführte Krieg, vol. 4/II, ed. F.A. Dahlgren (Stock- holm, 1856), 160. 13 Gallas’s inability to quarter his troops in either of the two Saxon circles for the winter of 1638–9 led to the first massive reversal of military fortunes after the accession of Ferdinand III. It is difficult to imagine Wallenstein letting the army go to ruin rather than antagonize the worthies of the Lower Saxon circle. See Robert Rebitsch, Matthias Gal- las (1588–1647). Generalleutnant des Kaisers zur Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges (Münster, 2006), 193. 14 Jenny Öhman, Der Kampf um den Frieden. Schweden und der Kaiser im Dreißigjähri- gen Krieg (Vienna, 2005), 91. 24 lothar höbelt old Ferdinand II’s attitude that any payments to the Swedes had to be born by the Protestants who had supposedly asked for their services, was far from helpful.15 The outlines of the Westphalian settlement had thus been in place for quite some time. If the Protestants made some extra windfall profits in 1646–7 they can almost be said to have achieved them in the proverbial fit of absent-mindedness. If at the beginning of the war, Catholics had been fairly united and Protestants obviously divided, it was the other way round now, or almost so. If Protestants cannot be said to have presented a united front, at least their divisions did not show because they were fairly passive spectators, whereas Catholics were certainly at loggerheads over both aims and means. Neither of the two mainstays of the Catholic cause in Germany was any longer willing to offer resistance to Protestant grievances. The Habsburg emperor wanted to bring the Protestants round to enable him to achieve a separate settlement with Sweden—either to exclude the French or at least put extra pressure on them. The Bavarian Wittelsbachs wanted to clear the ground for a universal peace, definitely including the French who insisted on satisfying their allies first. Thus early 1647 saw a bidding for Protestant diplomatic support by almost all sides—interestingly enough at a time when none of them fielded any armies to be taken seriously. Whenever Swedish negotiations stalled, Trauttmansdorff would increase his offers, zealously guarding Habsburg territory, but liberally spending bishoprics elsewhere, which he declared to be of no great concern to anyone (‘des Reiches stifter warzu niemandt in particulari interessiert’).16 Sweden has been charged with instrumentalizing Protestant grievances to further its strategic goals. No doubt it tried to do so. But in 1647 it was the other way round. Because the Swedes were trigger-happy after the previous year’s successes, and Trautt- mansdorff eager to please them before they went on the rampage again, the German Protestants were able to make the most of it without doing anything much.17 Seen from that perspective, Münster, or rather: Osnabrück deserves to be celebrated as an Augsburg, Mark II. It finally accorded German

15 For the (non-)efforts of the emperor to start a dialogue with Sweden, see the unpublished 1965 Vienna thesis by Rudolf Fürnkranz, ‘Die Geheimverhandlungen des Kaisers mit den Schweden vom Tode Gustav Adolfs bis zum schwedisch-französischen Bündnis 1638’. 16 APW, vol. II A 5, p. 503. 17 Fritz Dickmann, Der westfälische Frieden (Münster, 1959), 362–3. the westphalian peace 25

Protestants the equality they had not quite achieved previously. Thus, it is supposed to have ended the ‘wars of religion’, while ending a war that had in fact long ceased to be a war of religion (if ever it had been one). If anything, the de-confessionalization of German politics was a result not of the peace, but of the war. True enough: ‘All politics is local.’ Axel Gotthard, the most provocative and most original authority on that subject, has quite rightly pointed out that religious partisanship, confessional ‘cleavages’ and communal strife did not cease to matter all of a sudden simply because power brokers had become more cynical and tolerant about it after 1648.18 The persistent Habsburg moves to cash in on their ‘gains’ and weed out religious dissidents from their hereditary lands, starting almost immediately after 1648, prove his point.19 In that respect, peace even marked a return to orthodoxy, with battle lines drawn far more firmly than before. On an imperial, European or ‘international’ level, however, counter- revolutionary fervour had pretty much been washed away by the last phase of the war. During the early 1640s the Swedes proudly welcomed their first Catholic colonel, while Habsburgs did not just recruit prominent Protestants (like Souches, the Huguenot defender of Brünn/Brno in 1645, or Melander, their Hessian commander-in-chief in 1647–8), but tried to raise an explicitly ‘Protestant army’ under the command of Wallenstein’s old partner, Franz Albrecht of Saxe-Lauenburg, in 1642. At Münster, the two champions of the house of Austria, Trauttmansdorff and Peñaranda, were not above occasionally accusing each other of breaches of political correctness for being soft on heretics; but their real dispute was over favouring either a Calvinist axis in the north of Germany or a Lutheran one.20 Contrary to domestic affairs, where that sort of accommodating attitude was replaced by a return to bureaucratic chicanery after 1648, in international affairs there was no return to a ‘dévot’ strategy. For a century or more, Habsburgs were not allowed to lose sight of the fact that the arch-enemy had his headquarters not in Stockholm, nor for that matter in Constantinople, but in Versailles.

18 Gotthard, Religionsfriede, 578: ‘Es gab ein deutliches soziales Gefälle, die Eliten arrangierten sich, weiter unten kochte der Volkszorn über die 1555 verordnete Duldsam- keit.’ For further examples, see also id., Das Alte Reich, 102. 19 See the very informative, yet unfortunately unpublished, Ph.D. thesis by Kurt Piringer, ‘Ferdinand III. Katholische Restauration’ (Vienna, 1950), whose conclusions are reinforced by Alessandro Catalano, La Boemia e la riconquista delle coscienze (Rome, 2005). 20 Coleccion de Documentos ineditos para la historia de Espana [CODOIN], vol. 82 (Madrid, 1884), 488 (Peñaranda to Philip IV, 9 Jan. 1647). 26 lothar höbelt

The Westphalian System and Europe

The Westphalian congress may have been a landmark in the history of the diplomatic profession, but not in the history of the international system. It is a myth that hardly needs exploding any longer to claim that it put ‘sovereign states’ on the map. As Reinhard points out, one of the difficulties we encounter is that the term ‘state’, if it cannot be entirely avoided, at least needs to be qualified in the early modern context by means of inverted commas.21 Far from dealing with clearly demarcated independent units, ‘statesmen’ continued to base their arguments on supposedly outmoded feudal ties (witness the disputes over Alsace and the reunions the Westphalian ‘system’ spawned) and indulge in endless disputes about precedence and rank that characterized the ancient regime (but had been largely absent from the more easy-going sixteenth-century environment). Above all, there were no sovereign states because they were still subject to their sovereigns—and the choice of ruler followed dynastic rules. The most common cause of international conflict in the century to come were wars of dynastic succession, a form of ‘intervention’ into the ‘domestic’ issues of fellow members of the supposed ‘Westphalian system’ that makes absolute nonsense of the way the term is often used to bolster the concept of sovereignty of ‘nation states’. Nor did the peace of Westphalia recruit or free the German princes for the game of international politics (even if the notion that it had done so helped to increase their chances on the marriage market after the end of the Empire). The right of the estates of the Empire to form alliances, both at home and abroad, was made meaningless by the clause that they must not be directed against the Empire or the emperor. Above all, even the absence of this paragraph had not prevented countless princes (and a few hapless towns) from doing just that long before 1648. If the Rheinbund of 1654–8—which fit the type of alliance allowed by the treaty—can be seen as a last flowering of the attempts to form a neutralist third party within the Empire and avoid being sucked into the hegemonial campaigns the Habsburgs unleashed, in the long run the number of dissidents, actively opposing imperial policy, decreased rather than increased compared

21 Wolfgang Reinhard, ‘Staatsmacht als Kreditproblem’, Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 61 (1974), 289–319 at 293; Heinz Duchhardt, ‘ “Westphalian Sys- tem”. Zur Problematik einer Denkfigur’, Historische Zeitschrift, 269 (1999), 305–15. the westphalian peace 27 with pre-war averages.22 If anything, what was new after 1648 was not that Bavaria or Brandenburg could flirt with France, but that the dukes of Bouillon or Orleans (unfortunately, even Lorraine) could no longer get away with flirting with Vienna or Madrid. (One could even interpret Peñaranda’s vain hope of reviving the Huguenot party in France during the 1650s as an attempt to export the Normaljahr of 1624 to France).23 Thus, at its worst the losses the imperial prerogatives suffered boil down to ‘opportunity costs’. In terms of power politics, 1648 was not a harbinger of things to come, but a freak result that was little more than an interlude between the strict France vs. Habsburg bipolarity of the period which had held sway ever since Maximilian I had wooed Mary of Burgundy in 1477 and the ‘pentarchy’ that dominated Europe from Frederick the Great’s ‘modest proposal’ in 1740 to World War I. The two ‘external’ powers that started to enter this European ‘system’ in the century after 1648 were Britain and Russia. In 1648, both were still seen as exotic outsiders, whereas the two powers which unequivocally counted as the winners of the wars that ended in 1648 were Sweden (almost a republic for most of the war) and the Dutch Republic. Both of them were midget superpowers, with a population of roughly 2 million people (compared with 15 to 20 million each for France and the combined lands of the Habsburgs in Europe). Yet both of them had gained an aura of invincibility that reflected wartime experiences where a city like Amsterdam could buy the world and a cartel of a few dozen colonels could hold the Empire to ransom. The reputation of both these ephemeral great powers was dented only a few years after by the less than brilliant results they suffered in their wars with England and Poland. Soon after 1700, they lost their great power status for good. One of the aspects of the Westphalian congress that has contributed much to its nimbus consists of its pluralism. Almost everyone was present, because almost everyone had also taken part in the fighting. Only the king of the Congo—a Habsburg stalwart24—was left out, it seems. Yet, if the Thirty Years War had a much better claim to be considered a ‘first

22 Francis A. Pribram, ‚Beitrag zur Geschichte des Rheinbundes von 1658’, Österreichis- che Akademie der Wissenschaften. Sitzungsberichte der phil.-hist. Klasse, 115 (1888), 99–196; Burkhardt, Vollendung, 73–5. 23 CODOIN vol. 84, 332–4 (Peñaranda to Philip IV, 21 Jan. 1649). 24 C.R. Boxer, Salvador do Sa and the Struggle for Brazil and Angola, 1602–86 (London, 1952), 276. 28 lothar höbelt world war’ than most rival episodes,25 it still did not manage to come up with a universal peace settlement. It was no minor matter that the two main antagonists, France and Spain, did not conclude peace.26 Westpha- lia’s achievements thus consist of a separate peace, or rather two sets of separate peaces whose effects more or less cancelled each other out: Spain bought off the Dutch between the autumn of 1646, when Frederick Henry first confessed that things had changed, and 1648, when Dutch politics had finally worked out the implications.27 France pressured the emperor into signing a half-hearted agreement to stop supporting his Spanish cousins between the autumn of 1646, when the first draft agreement was ini- tialled under the watchful eye of a future pope who both encouraged and denounced the settlement, and 1648, when Ferdinand III saw no option but to ratify that undertaking.28 At first glance, Münster spelt defeat for Spain (which ceded territory to the Dutch) and victory for France (which gained territory from the Empire). Strategically, however, getting rid of the Dutch (who were indirectly already supporting Spain overseas by fighting Portuguese rebels) as against losing the support of the emperor (who anyway continued indirectly supporting Spain on the continent) was quite a good bargain for Madrid. The Dutch had locked up a huge part of Spain’s resources; their conquest of Brazil subsequent to their capture of the silver fleet in 1628 had proved the foremost stumbling-block on the way to getting the peace negotiations properly started. On the other hand, France and the emperor had hardly fought each other. There had never been any official declaration of war.29 Imperial armies had only invaded France once, in 1636; even

25 There were tenuous links to the Civil Wars in the British Isles and the Ottoman– Venetian conflict over Crete. See Rafael Valladares, ‘Un Reino mas para la monarquia? Felipe IV, Irlanda y guerra civil inglesa, 1641–9’, Studia Historica—Historia Moderna, 15 (1996), 259–72; and the Venetian reports from Vienna (Dispacci, vol. 91, nos 372 and 397, 3 Mar. and 5 May 1646) for the Spanish promise at least to provide funds to create a diver- sion for Venice by arming the Cossacks against Turkey. 26 Michael Rohrschneider, Der gescheiterte Frieden von Münster. Spaniens Ringen mit Frankreich auf dem Westfälischen Friedenskongreß (Münster, 2007). 27 Olaf van Nimwegen, ‘Deser landen crijchsvolck’. Het Staatse leger en de militaire revo- luties, 1588–1688 (Amsterdam, 2006) 237; Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic and the His- panic World 1606–61 (Oxford, 1982) 360–74. 28 APW vol. II A 4, 585–8; Konrad Repgen, ‘Die kaiserlich-französischen Satisfaktions- artikel vom 13. September 1646—ein befristetes Agreement’, in H. Duchhardt (ed.), Der Westf lische Friede: Diplomatie, politische Zäsur, kulturelles Umfeld, Rezeptionsgeschichte (Munich, 1998), 175–216; Karsten Ruppert, Die kaiserliche Politik auf dem Westfälischen Friedenskongreß (Münster, 1979). 29 This point is emphasized by Anja V. Hartmann (as against Schmidt, Dreißigjähriger Krieg, 59). the westphalian peace 29

Piccolomini’s auxiliary corps in the Netherlands was withdrawn in 1639. In return, the French had fought their war against Ferdinand III almost exclusively by proxy, keeping Bernhard of Weimar’s old army in funds. The only time they had massively intervened was in late 1644 when after Rocroi the young Condé made a clean sweep of the upper Rhine. After that high-water mark, Turenne was once again very much a junior partner to Wrangel in their combined efforts, and even Turenne was recalled after the Bavarian armistice in 1647. The Fronde turned that good bargain into something close to euphoria. 1648 was the year when the Spanish lost a battle (Lens) and thought they had won the war. The years after seemed to prove them right: 1652 turned out to be an annus mirabilis resembling 1625, even if Velazquez had in the meantime moved on from Las Lanzas to different subjects. Casale, Barcelona and Dunkirk fell to the Spaniards within a few weeks of each other (the last with a little bit of Puritan help, admittedly). Even when the tide turned again in 1654 and the change of front inherent in Crom- well’s western design depressed the scales even further, the peace of the Pyrenees was much better from Spain’s point of view than anything it had been offered between 1646 and 1648.30 There was going to be no French foothold in Italy; Catalonia had been reconquered; and if the Habsburgs had to leave Lorraine to the tender mercies of Louis XIV, Portugal was left to those of Philip IV—if only he had been able to crush it. Indeed, it was the survival of Portugal that points the way to any true reading of the results of the Great War. I am afraid it was the proverbial ‘profound forces’, not the work of the diplomats, that turned Westphalia into a watershed. The difference in the recuperative powers of Spain and France looked obvious with hindsight; but the collapse of Spain as a great power could not have been predicted in its suddenness (rather like the collapse of the Soviet Union in our days). Winston Churchill is supposed to have mused that Cromwell was so obsessed in his youth by the fear of the power of Spain that he failed to observe the rise of France (and he wondered if posterity would come to similar conclusions about him).31 If that was indeed Cromwell’s perception, he was very representative of his generation.

30 Paul Sonnino, ‘Prelude to the Fronde. The French Delegation at the Peace of West- phalia’, in Duchhardt (ed.), Westfälische Friede, 217–34. 31 John Charmley, Churchill: The End of Glory (London, 1993), 467. 30 lothar höbelt

Historians have understandably been uneasy with the concept of the ‘decline of Spain’.32 Part of that decline can be measured in demographic terms as Castile’s population declined; part of it consists in a shift from centre to periphery. The income from the silver fleets declined, not just because silver production declined, but because more of the silver was retained in America, and because more of the silver actually shipped to Europe managed to escape the clutches of the Spanish exchequer. Of course, smuggling may have boosted the private sector and thus not have been entirely detrimental to Spain’s economy. But whatever the causes, the effects are difficult to dispute. The super-power that had financed a war against the rest of Europe almost single-handedly could no longer marshal the forces to defeat (let alone conquer) Portugal. Its overseas possessions relied on the rivalry of the predators (and a combination of terrain and climate) rather than on their defensive capabilities for their survival. The plains of Flanders no longer contained a threat for Paris (comparable to the Turkish garrisons only a day’s ride away from Vienna), but an open invitation to France. That state of affairs, painfully obvious by the mid-1660s, was far from obvious only a dozen years earlier, let alone during the 1640s. By the mid- 1660s the Viennese Habsburgs drew their own conclusions and started to offer France a deal over the Spanish inheritance.33 Such an approach would have been completely unthinkable only a few years earlier. Impe- rial policy during the 1650s, because of its outward passivity, has gained an undeserved reputation for peaceful intentions. But Vienna had not turned its back on Spain. It was just re-negotiating the family compact. Maxi- milian Trauttmansdorff, who died in 1650, had unjustly been considered an enemy of Spain by his jealous comrade in adversity, Peñaranda (who cheekily accused him of being a danger to religion while he himself was plotting an alliance with Cromwell); but his successor, Johann Weikhard Auersperg, was above suspicion even from that quarter.34 Philip IV was

32 Henry Kamen, Spain in the Later Seventeenth Century, 1665–1700 (London, 1980), in particular, has tried to dispel that notion. 33 Jean Berenger, ‘An Attempted Rapprochement between France and the Emperor: the Secret Treaty for the Partition of the Spanish Succession of 19 January 1668’, in Hatton (ed.), Louis XIV and Europe, 133–52. 34 In the absence of a full length biography of Trauttmansdorff (who was considered a mainstay of the Spanish orientation by both papal and Venetian observers at Vienna), his policy is often over-shadowed by his tiffs with Peñaranda during the Münster negotiations; for his successor, see Grete Mecenseffy, ‘Im Dienste dreier Herren. Leben und Wirken des Fürsten Johann Weikhard Auersperg, 1615–77’, Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte, 114 (1938), 297–508. the westphalian peace 31 without a male heir until 1657. The hand of his eldest daughter, officially proclaimed Prince of the Asturias in 1656, was the obvious prize—and the price none too subtly demanded by Vienna for re-entering the war against France.35 Ferdinand III had signed the peace under duress—because the Swedes were in Prague and might be in Vienna next. War weariness there was. Yet there are a surprising number of voices around the imperial court who would not have minded fighting on: a famous latter-day dove like Leopold I’s mentor Portia was full of disgust at the result.36 Getting rid of the Swedish army was thus a priority. Once that was done, with Sweden neutral and the Dutch friendly, other things being equal, the Habsburgs need not fear the renewal of conflict with France. This is why in Habsburg minds the peace of Westphalia, at least in its international dimension, counted as little more than an armistice. In later years the Habsburgs would sometimes be accused of (or praised for) withdrawing from the Empire and concentrating on extending their domains towards the east. The causes of estrangement in the mid-seventeenth century were different. Vienna antagonized the majority of German princes in 1647–8 and again in 1655–6 by putting dynastic interests ahead of the common good of the Empire, yes; yet it did so not by concentrating on the Balkans (in those days fighting the Turks was still a politically correct occupation anyway), but by reopening the front in the west—thus pouring oil on the flames—and especially in the south where imperial armies openly intervened against France’s allies in 1656 with fly- ing colours. The Vienna court had for a long time allowed the Spanish crown to recruit troops in Germany and done its best to persuade the regiments it disbanded to take service with Spain. These efforts reached a new intensity when it was decided to send 12,000 men to Italy ‘sub sigillo imperatore’ in the summer of 1656.37 It was only with Ferdinand III’s death in April 1657 that both the marriage deal and military assistance were put on the back-burner, so as not to endanger Leopold’s election as emperor. The link with Spain served to make the Habsburg cause unpopular in Germany; yet Spain was quite

35 The ups and downs of these marriage negotiations can best be charted from the letters of Count Lamberg, the imperial ambassador in Madrid, deposited in the Upper Austrian Provincial Archive [OÖLA] in Linz. Herrschaft Steyr, Familienarchiv Lamberg, in particular boxes 1224, 1225 and 1227, that hold his correspondence with Auersperg and Portia. For the Spanish background, see Alistair Malcolm’s forthcoming book on Luis de Haro. 36 OÖLA, Lamberg 1224, Portia No. 25, 8 Oct. 1648. 37 HHStA, Vorträge 2, Konvolut 6, Memorandum of 14 July 1656. 32 lothar höbelt convinced of the necessity of her Viennese cousins holding on to the imperial title, proof if needs be that the rights that went with it were far from being considered inconsequential. By the time Leopold had been duly elected and crowned, however, the die had been cast in Madrid in favour of buying a mild peace by giving the infanta to Louis XIV rather than relying on the uncertain help Vienna could provide. Thus the armistice the peace of Westphalia provided was extended from a niggardly five or six years to a respectable twenty-five.38 It was only in 1673 that Leopold, prompted by the future ‘King Billy’, re-entered the fray, with the Dutch alliance the Habsburgs had hoped for ever since 1648, if not earlier, finally in place.39 The nature of the link between Vienna and Spain (at a time when no one yet had any doubts about Spain’s status as a great power) also maybe provides a clue as to why peace was so difficult to achieve in the first place. Dynastic links did not in themselves represent a guarantee of political co-operation or friendship: witness the rival lines of Wittelsbach or the Hessian ruling house. (One might even point to the earlier Bruder- zwist that had set Rudolf II against his family.) But as it happened Vienna could sign a separate peace with France in 1648, and still stay friends with Madrid to fight another day. Of course, we do find irritations galore, any number of cross-purposes and misunderstandings, when analysing the Habsburg war effort even before 1648. Yet, the almost instinctive affinity survived, and no one expected it to be any different. As Trauttmansdorff explained to that sympathetic Frenchman, the Comte d’Avaux, in 1647: as far as the ‘herausigen und drinnigen’ house of Austria was concerned, they were one being which could not be separated.40 The same did not hold true for her enemies, in particular Sweden— the most dangerous enemy after all, the power that defeated the emperor almost single-handedly in 1648. That curious animal, the ‘royal Swedish

38 That count, of course, excludes Vienna’s intervention in the Nordic War in 1657–60. It should be pointed out, however, that Ferdinand III and Auersperg proved significantly more reluctant to enter that conflict than to risk war with France; Leopold I—and in particular Leopold Wilhelm, it seems—saw a reversal of priorities. Francis A. Pribram, Lisola (Vienna, 1894), and Eckardt Opitz, Österreich und Brandenburg im Schwedisch-Polnischen Krieg, 1655–60 (Boppard 1969), both gloss over these divergent strategies at the beginning of the war. 39 For a discursive study of the long road to that alliance, see Manuel Herrero Sanchez, El Acercamiento Hispano-Neerlandes, 1648–78 (Madrid, 2000); Herbert H. Rowan, John de Witt. Grand Pensionary of Holland, 1625–72 (Princeton, 1978). 40 APW, vol. II A 5, 473 (7 Feb. 1647). the westphalian peace 33 army in Germany’, was a seemingly all-powerful, supremely self-confident agent, but at the same time a transient, structurally extremely fragile phenomenon. Once disbanded, it could not easily be pieced together again.41 Nor could Sweden’s alliances be turned on and off at will. Swedish diplomats were acutely conscious that if they turned their back on the Ger- man war, neither France nor the Netherlands would help them against any of their Baltic rivals. Admittedly, imperial diplomats had been slow in grasping the Swedish nettle. But during the 1640s their offers had already reached roughly the proportions finally agreed upon in Osnabrück. At times, both in 1641 and again in 1646, Sweden would even be tempted by offers that went beyond that and included the whole of Pomerania. Yet, whenever they got what they had asked for, Swedish negotiators could never overcome their suspicion that they were being offered a poisoned chalice. That combination of short-term invincibility and long-term vulnerability was most pronounced in the case of Gustavus Adolphus’s heirs. It can still be detected in the negotiating stance of Richelieu and his successors, who could not afford to antagonize the Dutch as the latter saw to it that the Spanish army in the Netherlands had one arm tied behind its back. In 1638, Olivares had apparently been willing to sacrifice Lorraine, but not Brazil, in exchange for peace with France.42 True, those peace feelers were not on a level with the imperial–Swedish negotiations of the 1640s; but the important thing is they were not even allowed to proceed because Richelieu felt compelled to reject any separate peace out of hand. In fact, the Dutch, who did not want either France or Sweden to win too resound- ingly, were the only ones, behind their river barrier and emboldened by their global network, who contemplated the prospect of diplomatic isolation with apparent equanimity, once the separation of Portugal from Spain had made it pointless for them to continue with a war that had become a three-cornered contest. Neither France nor Sweden could afford to do so. As it turned out, the effect of Habsburg solidarity on the European ‘balance of powers’ was massively overrated. In retrospect, the Thirty Years War seemed a futile bid for hegemony by the Casa d’Austria that

41 Politically, the emperor claimed the same for his armies: no armistice. 42 Auguste Leman, Richelieu et Olivares. Leurs négotiations secrètes de 1636 à 1642 pour le rétablissement de la paix (Lille, 1938). Of course, Olivares still expected Vercelli as a consolation prize. 34 lothar höbelt was bound to fail. At the time, however, her enemies thought that it was only by a fortuitous combination of alliances they were able to stem the Habsburg tide. The Habsburgs were too weak to impose their settlement, their pax Hispanica, on Europe. It was their misfortune that at the same time, they were still regarded as far too strong to take any chances with them. The Holy Roman Empire as model for Saint-Pierre’s Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe

Peter Schröder

It seems a curious aberration that at the beginning of the eighteenth century a Frenchman proposed the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire as something of a blueprint for peace in Europe. It is well known that the Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe by the Abbé de Saint-Pierre (1658–1743) has since been dismissed as the cumbersome and eccentric idea of an awkward French nobleman;1 and given the lasting controversy which Jean Bodin’s Six Livres de la République spurred concerning the question of sovereignty within the constitution of the Empire, it might seem ill-conceived to attempt to solve the issue of sovereignty among states by reference to the Reich.2 Yet the constitution of the Empire proved a crucial source of inspiration for Saint-Pierre.3 Despite some notable studies,4 the significance of the Abbé de Saint- Pierre as a political thinker has for a long time been widely ignored. There are very few academic English works on the Abbé and even his principal

1 Abbé de Saint-Pierre, Projet pour rendre la Paix perpétuelle en Europe [Utrecht 1713], ed. S. Goyard-Fabre (Paris, 1981). 2 I have discussed the issue of sovereignty concerning the Empire in the following essays: ‘The Constitution of the Holy Roman Empire after 1648: Samuel Pufendorf’s Assessment of its Importance and Constitutional Monstrosity in his Monzambano’, Historical Journal, 42 (1999), 961–83; and ‘Reich versus Territorien? Zum Problem der Souveränität im Heiligen Römischen Reich nach dem Westfälischen Frieden’, in Altes Reich, Frankreich und Europa. Politische, philosophische und historische Aspekte des französischen Deutschlandbildes im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, ed. O. Asbach et al. (Berlin, 2001), 123–43. Very useful is also J. Robert- son, ‘Empire and Union: Two Concepts of the Early Modern European Political Order’, in Robertson (ed.), A Union for Empire. Political Thought and the British Union of 1707 (Cam- bridge, 1995), 3–36. 3 See H. Duchhardt, ‚Reich und europäisches Staatensystem seit dem Westfälischen Frieden’, in Alternativen zur Reichsverfassung in der Frühen Neuzeit?, ed. V. Press (Munich, 1995), 179–87, esp. 179. 4 The first appear to be G. de Molinari, L’abbé de Saint-Pierre. Membre exclu de l’Académie française. Sa vie et ses œuvres (Paris, 1857), and E. Goumy, É tude sur la vie et les ecrits de l’Abbe de Saint-Pierre (Paris, 1859). Cf. also J. Drouet, L’abbé de Saint-Pierre, l’homme et l’œuvre (Paris, 1914), and H.H. Post, La societe des nations de l’Abbe de Saint- Pierre (Amsterdam, 1932). 36 peter schröder writings are not available in English.5 It is thanks to the perceptive work of Olaf Asbach that the importance of Saint-Pierre’s work, in particular as a major contribution to the political theory of international relations, has been recently highlighted and placed in a wider intellectual context.6 What follows here explicitly builds on this new and stimulating work. Arguably the Abbé was so ill perceived because of his daring criticism of the favoured concept of Realpolitik (and this always means Macht- politik): the balance of power. In the view of statesmen and diplomats, the balance of power was unequivocally superior to any alternative political concept which might challenge the convenience of this doctrine to the foreign policies of European sovereigns and states. Commonly associated with Machiavelli, the core of this self-proclaimed realist theory can be described as a reaction to the manifest lack of a secure and reliable framework within which to pursue international relations. The argument runs that there was no law and no obligations among rulers of states, since there could be no devotion to a common higher good. Further, since there was no superior human power to impose standards of behaviour on individual princes, each prince remained an authority in his own right—a power above

5 See notably M.L. Perkins, The Moral and Political Philosophy of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre (Geneva/Paris 1959), and T.E. Kaiser, ‘The Abbé de Saint-Pierre, Public Opinion, and the Reconstitution of the French Monarchy’, Journal of Modern History, 55 (1983), 618–43. I have been unable to trace an English contemporary translation of the Abbé’s Projet or any of his other writings. But see now the very small extract of his Projet in D. Williams (ed.), The Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1999), 356–63. David Williams reiterated the same mistake about Saint-Pierre’s involvement at Utrecht (see below). Any knowledge of Saint- Pierre in eighteenth-century Britain seems to have been channelled by Rousseau’s engagement with the Abbè’s work. See especially A Project for Perpetual Peace. By J.J. Rousseau (or rather, abridged by him from the ‘Projet de paix perpetuelle’ of the Abbe de Saint-Pierre) (London, 1761). There are a few studies dedicated to the relationship between Rousseau and Saint-Pierre: see in particular S. Stelling-Michaud, ‘Ècrits sur l’Abbé de Saint-Pierre’, in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Œuvres complètes, vol. 3 (Paris, 1964), pp. cxx–clviii; id., ‘Ce que Jean-Jacques Rousseau doit à l’Abbé de Saint-Pierre’, in Études sur le Contrat de Jean- Jacques Rousseau (Paris, 1964), 35–45; J.L. Lecercle, ‘L’Abbé de Siant-Pierre, Rousseau et l’Europe’, Dix-Huitiéme Siécle, 25 (1993), 23–38; O. Asbach, ‘Zwischen Souveränität und Föderation. Moderne Staatlichkeit und die Ordnung Europas beim Abbé de Saint-Pierre und Jean-Jacques Rousseau’, Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, 11 (2001), 1073–99; O. Asbach and D. Hüning, ‘Naturzustand und Rechtsbegründung. Der Abbé de Saint-Pierre zwischen Hobbes und Rousseau, Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, 84 (1998), 307–25. 6 Apart from Olaf Asbach’s work mentioned above, see in particular O. Asbach, Die Zähmung der Leviathane. Die Idee einer Rechtsordnung zwischen Staaten bei Abbé de Saint- Pierre und Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Berlin, 2002); id., Die Reichsverfassung als föderativer Staatenbund. Das Alte Reich in der politischen Philosophie des Abbé de Saint-Pierre and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’, in Altes Reich, Frankreich und Europa, ed. Asbach (Berlin, 2001), 171–218. the empire as model for saint-pierre’s projet 37

which there was no other. What this amounted to was an expressed belief that relationships among political states were unrestrainedly competitive.7 This precarious situation had previously engendered the attempt to bridle war through convention in various versions of just-war theory.8 Yet with the Peace of Westphalia the idea of a balance of power represented the highest wisdom of European statecraft in its attempt to safeguard international relations and the status quo. Studies on the result of the politics of war and peace during the ancien régime are countless, but only exception- ally do we find the underlying concept of the balance of power seriously questioned.9 It is my assertion that the Abbé de Saint-Pierre was one of the first10 to challenge this concept in the spirit of Enlightenment philosophy, that is to say, not only in the form of an erudite study but rather with the concrete attempt to influence and ameliorate the international situation. Saint- Pierre was clearly well aware that the concept of sovereignty was the basis of the balance of power. Consequently, this issue would be central to his attempt to provide an alternative arrangement. More than a mere historical example, the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire served him as a key tool with which to address the necessity of accommodating sovereignty within a wider framework which would allow for reliable peace and

7 C.S. Edwards, Hugo Grotius, the Miracle of Holland. A Study of Political and Legal Thought (Chicago, 1981), 82. 8 F. Dickmann, ‘Krieg und Frieden im Völkerrecht der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Dickmann, Friedensrecht und Friedenssicherung. Studien zum Friedensproblem in der neuen Geschichte (Göttingen, 1971), 116–39. 9 As a contemporary testimony see, for instance, David Hume’s praise of the balance of power in 1752: ‘Of the Balance of Power’, in D. Hume, Political Essays, ed. by K. Haakonssen (Cambridge, 1994), esp. 157. For critical discussion, see particularly L. Dehio, Gleichgewicht oder Hegemonie. Betrachtungen über ein Grundproblem der neueren Staatengeschichte (Krefeld, 1948); E. Luard, The Balance of Power. The System of International Relations 1648– 1815 (London, 1992); H. Fenske, ‘Gleichgewicht, Balance’, in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. 2, ed. O. Brunner et al. (Stuttgart, 1975), 959–96; K. Repgen, ‘Der Westfälische Frieden und die Ursprünge des europäischen Gleichgewichts’, in Jahres- und Tagungsbericht der Görres-Gesellschaft 1985 (Cologne, 1985), 50–66; P.W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (Oxford, 1994). 10 Of course, I do not intend to insinuate that the Abbé was the first to explicitly develop a project for peace in Europe, nor the first to elaborate a theory of international relations. But his pertinent criticism of the balance of power and the concept of sovereignty as the main obstacle to a lasting and reliable structural change clearly distinguish him as one of the first thinkers who engaged in this kind of analysis. For a general overview on other peace projects during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see K. Malettke, ‘Europabewußtsein und Europäische Friedenspläne im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’, Francia, 21 (1994), 63–92. 38 peter schröder stability. It is thus the task of this chapter to demonstrate how Saint-Pierre employed the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire in his theory of international relations. Before I endeavour to make sense of Saint-Pierre’s argument, allow me to set one minor biographical detail straight. The myth stubbornly remains, even in fairly recent studies on Saint-Pierre, or in general accounts of the history of international relations, that the Abbé attended the negotiations at Utrecht as secretary to the French envoy Abbé de Polignac and that it was only because of this experience that he wrote his Projet.11 It is difficult to see how such a misconception could survive for so long, given that as early as 1966 an essay by Herbert G. Folkes settled this matter convincingly.12 Saint-Pierre simply could not have travelled to Utrecht together with Polignac, who left Paris on 7 January 1712 for Utrecht, because ‘ce jour même (. . .) l’abbé de Saint-Pierre signa le registre de présence de l’Académie française, et il continua à la signer trois fois par semaine pendant toute cette année, ne manquant qu’à une seule des cent cinquante séances—celle du 14 novembre’.13 Apart from this compelling fact there is some additional circumstantial evidence which points to the same conclusion. The letters of accreditation and passports for the envoys to the congress, for example, do not show the name of Saint-Pierre, nor does the Abbé himself write in his Annales politiques as if he had been at the congress in Utrecht.14 The assertion—made without the slightest substantia- tion—that the Abbé ‘was present at the Congress of Utrecht, which gave him the idea of writing the Project’ is simply not sustainable.15 The derived assumption that the Abbé wrote the Projet to foster Louis XIV.’s position during the Utrecht negotiations is equally misleading speculation. Neither claim is in any way supported by the content of his text.

11 For just two recent examples which make similar unsubstantiated claims about Saint- Pierre’s presence at the congress at Utrecht, see F. Speltore ‘Federalism in the History of Thought. Abbé de Saint-Pierre’, in The Federalist. A Political Review, 36 (1994), 221–35, and H. Kleinschmidt, Geschichte der internationalen Beziehungen (Stuttgart, 1998), 157. See also Williams, Enlightenment, and below, n. 15. 12 H.G. Folkes, ‘L’Abbé de Saint-Pierre assista-t-il au congres d’Utrecht?, in Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de la France, 66 (1966), 483–7. 13 Ibid., 486. 14 Ibid., 485. See also Perkins, Moral and Political Philosophy, and Post, Société des Nation. 15 F. Speltore ‘Federalism in the History of Thought’, 221. Unfortunately even Fran- çois Bluche and Sven Stelling-Michaud reiterate the same error: F. Bluche, ‘Saint-Pierre’, in Dictionnaire du Grand Siècle, ed. Bluche (Paris, 1990), 1396. S. Stelling-Michaud, Ècrits, p. cxli. That this error is reiterated in such prominent places may well be the reason that the myth of Saint-Pierre’s presence at the negotiations at Utrecht will not die easily. the empire as model for saint-pierre’s projet 39

Let us now turn to the Abbé’s argument. He was faced with the dilemma that the sovereigns of the European states jealously guarded their prerogatives.16 Thomas Hobbes was the first to perceive this dilemma and sought to find redress in his political philosophy. His equation of the state of nature with the relationship between states identified precisely the most troublesome aspect of international relations, namely, how international law can be enforceable and at the same time reconciled with the sovereignty of each individual state. Faced with the same imperative Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf had attempted to offer their own solutions on the basis of theories of natural law. But surprisingly Saint-Pierre praised Hobbes as the most pertinent thinker from whom to seek guidance: ‘Hobbes (. . .) a plus approché de la bonne méthode de demontrer, mais, faute d’embrasser tous les principes, au lieu de véritables démonstrations, il nous a donné comme Machiavel (. . .) beaucoup de paralogismes en matièrs très importantes.’17 Saint-Pierre’s use of the fundamental aspects of Hobbes’ political theory in his Projet is striking. Although he does not once mention Hobbes’ name, there is no doubt that the Abbé endeavoured to apply Hobbes’ political philosophy to the sphere of international relations. Hobbes’ equation of the state of nature with the relation of states18 provided the fundamental insight into the precarious situation in which the preservation of states was constantly under threat. For individuals, the absence of enforceable rights due to the lack of sovereign authority served as the compelling reason to establish just such a sovereign authority. As with every man in the state of nature, so too is every nation ‘allowed a Right to use all the means, and do all the actions’19 necessary for its self-preservation. The decision as to what constitutes the appropriate employment of any means also lies at the discretion of each state, since ‘he himself, by the right [of] nature, must be judge’.20 Thus nations have a right to everything (ius in omnia),21 but this unlimited right makes it impossible to enjoy liberty safely. This brief sketch of the Hobbesian state of nature demonstrates clearly that it

16 See, for example, H. Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London, 1984), 252, where he claims that ‘there is not the slightest evidence that sovereign states in this century will agree to subordinate themselves to a world government founded upon consent’. 17 Abbé de Saint-Pierre, Ouvrages de moral et de politique (Rotterdam, 1729–41), vi.127f. 18 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. R. Tuck (Cambridge, 1992), ch. 30, p. 244. 19 T. Hobbes, De Cive, Eng. version, ed. H. Warrender (Oxford, 1983), I-8, p. 47. 20 Ibid., I-9, p. 47. 21 Ibid., I-11, p. 49. 40 peter schröder is applicable to the situation of international relations. However, one may and should pursue this argument further.22 For us it is crucial to grasp at this point the fundamental problem which the Abbé faced and answered boldly. Precisely at the historical watershed, where the concrete development and philosophical justification of state authority were at their height and perceived as the substantial answer to the breakdown of universal Christendom and ensuing civil strife, the Abbé was perhaps the first to challenge the dominant wisdom of early modern statecraft.23 Although he perceived the formation of the sovereign state as an important achievement, he stressed at the same time that the anarchical society of states was indeed the main obstacle to a lasting structural peace. Given that sovereigns of states claimed themselves to be judge in their own case, all treaties and contracts remained precarious because there was no way to seek redress if any of the contractual parties decided not to honour their contractual obligations. ‘Les Souverains peuvent se donner des paroles, s’engager par des promesses mutuelles, signer entr’eux des Traitez; mais il n’y a nulle sureté suffisante, que l’un ou l’autre des Contracteurs ne changera pas de volonté.’24 The fundamental miscal- culation, according to Saint-Pierre, was to see the best remedy to this volatile situation in a balance of power. This theory and practice claimed to be a realistic response to the de facto situation of international relations. But it was effectively unable to provide any structural stability beyond the contingent and fluctuating outcomes of fickle alliances and the fortunes of war. Saint-Pierre could not have been clearer and more ardent in his judgement about the alleged merits of the balance of power: Si l’evidence du raisonnement ne suffit pas, que l’on consulte l’expérience, que l’on voye ce qui est arrivé depuis deux cens ans dans le Systême de l’Equilibre, qu’on lise l’histoire de l’Europe? Qu’est-ce qu’a operé ce malheu- reux Systême, sinon des Guerres presque perpétuelles? Combien peu a duré

22 Given the limited space I am unable to engage with these aspects here, but see my previous work, where I have already in some detail analysed Hobbes’ argument:, ‘Völker- recht und Souveränität bei Thomas Hobbes’, in Souveränitätskonzeptionen. Beiträge zur Analyse politischer Ordnungsvorstellungen im 17. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, ed. M. Peters and Schröder (Berlin, 2000), 41–57, and ‘Natural Law, Sovereignty and International Law: A Comparative Perspective’, in Natural Law and Civil Sovereignty, ed. I. Hunter and D. Saun- ders (Basingstoke, 2002), 204–18. 23 See O. Asbach, ‚Politik und Frieden beim Abbé de Saint-Pierre. Erinnerung an einen (fast) vergessenen Klassiker der politischen Philosophie’, in Politisches Denken Jahrbuch 1995/6 (Stuttgart, 1996), 133–63, esp. 154. 24 Saint-Pierre, Projet, i.17. the empire as model for saint-pierre’s projet 41

la Tréve de Vervins?25 Je ne sçaurois appeller d’un autre nom un Paix qui ne peut pas durer. Combien de tems au contraire a duré la Guerre depuis la fin de cette Tréve jusqu’à present? Tel est l’effet de cet Equilibre si desiré. (. . .) Et qui ne voit pas que dans le Systéme de l’Equilibre on ne trouve de sûreté que les armes à la main? Et qu’ainsi l’on ne peut jamais jouir de sa liberté, qu’aux déçens de son repos.26 The Abbé addresses two levels of argument throughout his Projet. First, he is keen to demonstrate that right reasoning will lead all to the same conclusions he himself draws. He presents his method deliberately in the tradition of Descartes and maintains that human reason is the critical judge of the validity of any intellectual undertaking. But, as he implies in the citation above, some people may not be used to abstract reasoning, or think it not sufficient proof in the realm of politics. These people ought to refer to experience and they will be drawn to the same conclusions. Second, he denounces the balance of power as nothing more than an improvised system which tried, in his view entirely in vain, to address the underlying structural contradictions of the anarchical society of sovereign states.27 What was, on the contrary, necessary, was the rule of law. But the rule of law was, analogously to the exit from the state of nature, only possible if states were prepared to give up the unrestricted rights of their sovereignty. Every conflict demonstrated that each party believed itself to have right on its side. They were the only judge in a conflict with no possible recourse to an arbiter.28 Only the subjective wills of the conflicting parties dominated the way in which the conflict was conducted. The fundamental structural problem was, therefore, that ‘la constitution présente de l’Europe ne sçauroit jamais produire que des Guerres presque continuelles, parce qu’elle ne sçauroit jamais procurer aucune sûreté suffisante de l’execution des Traitez’.29 According to Saint-Pierre this unstable situation had to be overcome in order to ensure that the conflicting parties could have ‘une autre Regle que leur volonté, c’est la

25 The Treaty of Vervins was concluded on 13 April 1598 between Philip II and Henry IV—officially France was again at war with Spain from 1635 onwards, but actually one could argue that Louis XIII’s nomination of Richelieu as member of the Conseil in 1624 was also the moment France resumed the war against Spain. Saint-Pierre is certainly right in saying that the period 1598 to 1713 was not one of peace and stability. 26 Saint-Pierre, Projet, i.38f. 27 Ibid., i.47. 28 Ibid., iii.7: ‘Je suis Juge (. . .) & seul Juge dans ma propre Cause, & dans toutes mes prétentions, je ne reconnois aucun Superieur sur la Terre.’ 29 Ibid., i.3. 42 peter schröder

Loy’.30 Not surprisingly, in light of the volatile situation between states Saint-Pierre also draws the same conclusion as Hobbes did for individuals in the state of nature.31 In order to leave this precarious state of affairs, an arbiter endowed with sufficient compelling power had to be established. This would clearly be in the interest of every state concerned, because it would not only overcome the fragile balance of power, but also allow for increased commerce and industry: ‘Ils n’ont point le sécours des Arts & du Commerce, parce qu’ils n’ont point de Loix, ni de Société permanente qui puissent punir les infracteurs de Loix.’32 As in Hobbes the notion of civil society does not simply describe an arbitrary social gathering of people, but the legal framework of a political body, established and thus legiti- mized by contract, for which the notion of enforceable law was crucial. As a matter of fact and still closely following Hobbes’ argument, only under a legal framework endowed with an arbiter would the notion of property be meaningful. Dans l’Arbitrage chacun est sur de conserver les biens qu’il possede, & ceux qu’il pourra acquerir par son industrie, [ou] par son travail (. . .). L’Arbitrage ne peut point lui ôter rien de ses biens, parce que l’Arbitrage est établi pour conserver tranquillement chacun dans ses biens, & pour empècher les invasions réciproques. L’Arbitrage est une convention faite pour l’interêt de chacun des Associez: Or, un point important pour l’interét commun; c’est que chacun puisse avoir une veritable proprieté de ses biens.33

30 Ibid., i.13. 31 The Abbé reiterated almost expressis verbis the famous Hobbesian description of the state of nature. Saint-Pierre, Projet, ii.360–3: ‘J’ai fait faire réflexion sur la vie malheureuse des Sauvages. Ils ne dépendent à la vérité d’aucun Souverain, d’aucun Loix, d’aucune Société, mais a cause des nécessitez de la vie, ils dépendent extrémement des Saison; ils dépendent même des bêtes féroces, & ce qui est le plus terrible dans leur dépendance, ils dépendent de leurs voisins qui sont autant de bêtes féroces qui peuvent tous les jours leur ôter impunément leurs biens & la vie même. (. . .) ils ont beau de faire des promesses récip- roques pour jouir en Paix de leurs possessions, ils n’ont nulle sureté de leur éxécution (. . .) Qui seroit assez extravagant pour préférer la vie des Sauvages, avec leur indépendence de toutes Loix, jointe à la dure & perpétuelle dépendance les uns aux autres, à la vie que nous menons dans une parfaite indépendance les uns des autres, jointe à notre dépendance des Loix?’ Compare the well-known description in T. Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 13, p. 89: ‘In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty brutish, and short.’ 32 See Saint-Pierre, Projet, ii.360. 33 Ibid., iii.78. the empire as model for saint-pierre’s projet 43

But at the same time this foundational act had to ensure the liberty of the individual states. It was not enough for Saint-Pierre simply to establish a powerful sovereign over the remaining European states. He envisaged a European union or federation with representative institutions in the form of a permanent congress and court of law. The arbiter was, therefore, not perceived as a single person or sovereign. Similar to Hobbes and the thinkers of the natural law tradition, the idea of a foundational contract served him as the best and indeed only means of establishing such a society, where the members could enjoy their liberty and rights. But contrary to the idea of a social contract between individuals, the envisaged contract for establishing a society between the European states had effectively to take place. It was, therefore, crucial for the Abbé to be able to convince the Euro- pean sovereigns to join in such a contract. Hence his endeavour to demonstrate that it was not only in the interest of each state, but that such a society was at the same time a realistic and practicable solution to the inherent conflicts of inter-state relations. However, it is more than a concession to the self-interest of the sovereigns concerned when Saint-Pierre claims: ‘Il est absolument necessaire que (. . .) chacun d’eux demeura en possession de ce qu’il possede actuelment.’34 He was convinced that preservation of the liberty and independence of the different states was the underlying reason and aim of such a contract in the first place. Conse- quently he argued that ‘il est absolument necessaire pour la conversation de leur vie, de leurs biens, de leur liberté de leurs droits, qu’ils conviennent que dans leurs contestations nul ne prétendra être Juge legitime dans sa propre cause’.35 The principle, or rather necessity, of being judge in one’s own case (ipse-iudex) was the crux of the problem in the state of nature. Once this structural problem had been overcome, it would merely be a question of institutional organisation to guarantee the achieved security and liberty of a society based on law: Il est absolument necessaire que’ils conviennent de moyens suffisans pour donner à l’Arbitrage une force suffisante pour faire executer les Loix gene- rales, & ses Jugemens particuliers. L’epée n’est pas moins necessaire à la Jus- tice, que la balance, les Loix, les Jugemens (. . .) seroient inutiles si l’Arbitrage n’avoit pas la force de les faire executer; il faut absolument faire en sorte que nul ne puisse être tenté de résister à la force de l’Arbitrage.36

34 Ibid., iii.50. 35 Ibid., iii.51. 36 Ibid., iii.56. 44 peter schröder

Clearly it was crucial to the successful overcoming of the anarchical character of the European state-system that the envisaged organization provide a strong arbiter and undisputed procedural rules. But the Abbé still had to address the concern of how to avoid misuse of such a powerful institution and how to guarantee the rights and liberty of the contractual states. A federative structure was the obvious answer for Saint-Pierre, even though political theory which advocated a federal republic was far from widespread in France.37 Interestingly, the Abbé initially referred to the Swiss, Dutch and German states when he sought to give an appropriate example for the envisaged European union of states: [J]e trouvai que si les (. . .) Souverainetez d’Éurope pour se conserver dans le Gouvernement présent, pour éviter la Guerre entre elle, & pour se procurer tous les avantages d’un Commerce perpétuel de Nations à Nation, vouloient faire un Traité d’Union & un Congrez perpétuel à peu pres sur le même modelle des sept Souveraintés de Hollande, ou des treize Souveraintés des Suisses, ou des Souveraintés d’Allemagne, & former l’Union Européenne sur ce qu’il y a de bon dans ces Unions & sur tout dans l’Union Germani- que composée de plus de deux cens Souveraintés, (. . .) que les plus foibles auroient sureté suffisante, que la grande puissance des plus forts ne pourroit leur nuire, que chacun garderoit exactement les promesses réciproques.38 But when Saint-Pierre mentions the Empire along with the Swiss and Dutch republics, he stresses quite clearly that it is the Empire which will serve him as his prime example and model for the envisaged union of European states. Reference to the Swiss or Dutch republic had long been commonplace in political thought.39 The allusion to the Empire, however, was somewhat unusual, and the Abbé was quick to explain in his preface why he would refer exclusively to the Empire as the key example for his own Projet:

37 See esp. ibid., iii.117. Apart from the Abbé de Saint-Pierre notably Mably, Montes- quieu and Rousseau later harboured similar ideas, and all appear to be influenced by the Abbé’s writings. See H. Hintze, Staatseinheit und Föderalismus im alten Frankreich und in der Revolution (Frankfurt, 1989), 69f; O. Asbach, ‘Staat, Politik und die Verfassung der Freiheit. Zu den Anfängen des republikanischen Verfassungsdenkens in der französischen Aufklärung’, Der Staat, 42 (2003), 1–34; J.K. Wright, ‘The Idea of a Republican Constitution in Old Régime France’, in Republicanism: a Shared European Heritage, ed. M.v. Gelderen and Q. Skinner (2 vols, Cambridge, 2002), i.289–306, and M. Sonenscher, ‘Republicanism, State Finance and the Emergence of Commercial Society in Eighteenth Century France— or from Royal to Ancient Republicanism and Back’ ibid., ii.275–91. 38 Saint-Pierre, Projet, i, Preface, p. vii. 39 See M.v. Gelderen, The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt, 1555–90 (Cambridge, 1992), and J.I. Israel, The Dutch Republic. Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477–1806 (Oxford, 1995). the empire as model for saint-pierre’s projet 45

‘En examinant le Gouvernement des Souverains d’Allemagne, je ne trouvai pas plus de difficultez à former des nos jours le Corps Européen, qu’on en trouva autrefois à former le Corps Germanique, à exécuter en plus grand ce qui étoit déjà exécuter en moins grand.’40 Saint-Pierre perceived in the Empire an elaborate division of power which was institutionalized in its various political establishments and procedural customs. Astonish- ingly, one crucial reason why the Reich at least after 1648 served him as the best example, rather than any of the other federal states in Europe, is to be seen in the fact that the Empire had, according to Saint-Pierre, successfully accommodated a wide range of very different political units. It was here that an example could be found of how greater and smaller states were able to form a political body by establishing a wide range of institutions. He develops this argument at the beginning of his Projet, in the first part of his second discourse. The reference to and analysis of the Empire is thus situated at the very heart of his argument. However, the Abbé seems to undermine this point by introducing an absolutely incredible—and thus highly suspicious—perspective on the founding of the Empire. After giving a historical account of the Reich from the time of Charlemagne, of the later competitive relationship between the estates and the emperor—which, according to Saint-Pierre, resulted in the eventual establishment of a federal structure—he then claims that such a federation had necessarily been founded on the basis of a treaty and that such a treaty had in turn been the result of a theoretical work of a ‘sage Auteur de l’Union Germanique’41 who had sketched such a union as a project.42 Why, one has to wonder, did the Abbé introduce such a fabrication? This idea of a previous project upon which the founding federative contract of the Empire was established becomes even more per- plexing as the Abbé goes on to assert: Je ne scai pas si ce Projet tomba d’abord dans l’esprit d’un Prince ou d’un Partiqulier. Je ne scai pas non plus jusqu’où l’Auteur le porta d’abord, mais toûjours ce fut alors que l’Union commença à se former, elle ne se forma pas sans Projet, & ce fut dans ce tems-là que parut ce chef-d’œuvre de politique si digne d’un bon Prince, d’un bon Citoyen, & qui étoit si necessaire au salut de sa Patrie.43

40 Saint-Pierre, Projet, i, Preface, pp. viii f. 41 Ibid., i.56. See also 67. 42 For extensive discussion of this puzzle, see Asbach, Zähmung der Leviathane, 136–56. Cf., apart from the already cited references, notably Saint-Pierre, Projet, i.118, where he speaks of a ‘Solon Alleman’. 43 Saint-Pierre, Projet, i.68. 46 peter schröder

Why did the Abbé insist on the historical existence of a project and a treaty of union, for which he had no historical proof? Among many of his critics was Leibniz, who criticized the Abbé on precisely these grounds. ‘It seems’, Leibniz argues, ‘that he conceives the German union as having begun with some treaty; but this cannot be reconciled with history.’44 After having disavowed all the historical facts regarding the foundation of the Empire, the Abbé is nevertheless keen to demonstrate that its existing institutions can serve as a superb model for the envisaged union of European states. And it is this strategy which might help to explain the ambivalent and irritating reference to the history of the Empire. Saint- Pierre knew very well that the institutional structure of the Reich was much less straightforward than he had suggested. As a matter of fact, the Abbé went to some lengths to criticise the emperor for undermining the federative union of the Empire. He asserted that the tension between the emperor and the estates jeopardized the project of a federative republic as it had allegedly been envisaged in the fictitious project of such dubious provenance. Saint-Pierre leaves no doubt that it was because of ‘ce vieux édifice Monarchique, [that it was so difficult] de faire de tout ces Etats un Etat plus Republicain, que celui de Corps Germanique’.45 But to establish a federative union on republican principles was, in his view, precisely what was required to overcome the structural problems of the anarchical and hence precarious society of European states. The Abbé did, therefore, insist on the idea that such an ideal plan for establishing a federative union must also have existed for the Empire, without denying that its actual historical situation was considerably different. This allowed him to introduce a point of reference aloof from current affairs and historical dispute, an ideal form of a federative union based on republican principles, which was, to his taste, much more advantageous and pertinent as a model for his own project than the actual existence of the Empire with its inherent tensions and problems. This marks a fundamental and crucial difference from Rousseau, who would praise the existing Empire as decisive in preserving the balance of power in Europe: ‘Malgré les défauts de cette constitution de l’Empire’, Rousseau claims, ‘il

44 G.W. Leibniz, ‘Observations on the Abbé de Saint-Pierre’s “Project for Perpetual Peace”’ in Leibniz, Political Writings, ed. P. Riley (Cambridge, 1989), 182. 45 Saint-Pierre, Projet, i.85. Leibniz criticized Saint-Pierre for this position and maintained the opposite view: ‘The defect of the Empire is not, as M. l’Abbé de Saint-Pierre seems to take it, that the Emperor has too much power, but that the Emperor, as Emperor, does not have enough.’: ‘Observations’, 182. the empire as model for saint-pierre’s projet 47 est certain que tant qu’elle subsistera, jamais l’équilibre de l’Europe ne sera rompu, qu’aucun Potentat n’aura à craindre d’être détrôné par un autre, et que le Traité de Westphalie sera peut-être à jamais parmis nous la base du systéme politique.’46 It is evident, as Sven Stelling-Michaud rightly stressed, that ‘Rousseau déforme ici la pensée de l’abbé de Saint- Pierre’.47 Whereas Rousseau argues in the spirit of a historian or politician, who is simply referring to obvious facts and their concrete implications, the Abbé’s intention had quite clearly been very different. Saint-Pierre was much more daring than Rousseau and almost all other contemporary political thinkers in his analysis of the contemporary problems of the European state system, as well as in his vision for redressing its shortcomings. In view of his clear analytical grasp of the structural problems of the anarchical society which was rather euphemistically described in the term ‘balance of power’, it seems facile and cynical to dismiss the Abbé as unrealistic. It is true, however, that his ambivalent references to the Empire must have encouraged such criticism. It is, therefore, crucial to appreciate the double structure of this argument. On the one hand the idealized project-maker, the German Solon, and the implied agreement on a founding treaty provided the theoretical framework for the envisaged European union. This feature allowed for an ideal type to which reference could be made to illustrate the necessary aspects of the union. On the other hand, however, the Abbé stressed the existing institutions of the Empire as the best means to accommodate the various, often very different, interests of the European states. It was in this context that he revealed impressive insight into the actual structure and constitution of the Reich.48 Most remarkable for the Abbé was the way in which the diet and the Imperial Chamber Court mutually endorsed and incorporated the federative structure. These two institutions guaranteed on the one hand the representation of all the members and on the other an acknowledged arbiter over any dispute within the federation. But what seemed really crucial to the Abbé was the system of imperial circles (Reichskreise), which allowed

46 J.-J. Rousseau, ‘Extrait du Projet de Paix Perpétuelle de Monsieur l’Abbé de Saint- Pierre’, in Rousseau, Œuvres complètes, vol. 3 (Paris, 1964), 572. 47 S. Stelling Michaud, ‘Notes et Variantes’, ibid. 1546. 48 Obvious sources for the Abbé seem to have been notably the writings by Jaques Auguste de Thou and Samuel Pufendorf. See also R. Derathé, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et la science politique de son temps (2nd edn, Paris, 1995), esp. 78 ff, and Asbach, Zähmung der Leviathane, 158 ff. 48 peter schröder the differences of the various members to be accommodated and provided an even and fair distribution of power and influence within the union. However, and here the Abbé demonstrates his clear-sightedness concerning the real historical situation of the Empire, this republican structure was severely undermined and threatened by the emperor. L’affoiblissement de la liberté du Corps Germanique est encore devenu fort sensible par l’état où se trouve presentement l’autorité de la Chambre Impe- riale (. . .). C’étoit, pour ainsi dire, le centre de l’Union. (. . .) L’autorité de cette Chambre jointe avec l’autorité de la Diette (. . .) faisoient toute la force de l’Union; il étoit l’interêt des Empereurs de les affoiblir.49 The conflicting interests between the emperor on the one hand and the estates on the other had, of course, been discussed for a very long time in the Reich itself and in France alike.50 The Abbé was not interested in ter- minating, or even contributing to, the long-lasting and apparently insoluble discussion of where sovereignty would be found in the Empire. He simply took the stance that the original structure of the Reich had been conceived as a republican federation, and that this was still reflected in the imperial institutions. It was in the Empire’s ensuing historical development that the sovereignty of these institutions had been successively usurped, to the point that: ‘l’Empereur devient (. . .) l’unique Juge des differens des autres Souverains; ainsi on peut dire que ce seul défaut à conduit insessiblement la Republique Germanique sur le penchant de sa ruine.’51 The Abbé was far from ignorant of the inherent conflicts and constitutional struggles within the Empire. But his main concern was not directed towards these issues. Contrary to his commentator Rousseau, the Abbé believed that despite all the constitutional shortcomings of the Reich, a permanent solution with which to overcome the anarchical Euro- pean society was both desirable and possible, and that the Empire could indeed serve as the best model for successfully achieving such a European constitution. Rousseau warned that such a plan was ‘trop bon pour être adopté’ and any attempt to realise it would demand ‘des moyens viol- ens et redoubtables à l’humanité’.52 But although Saint-Pierre spoke of a

49 Saint-Pierre, Projet, i.80 f. 50 See K. Malettke, Frankreich, Deutschland und Europa im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Beiträge zum Einfluß französischer politischer Theorie, Verfassung und Außenpolitik in der Frühen Neuzeit (Marburg, 1994), esp. 129–261. 51 Saint-Pierre, Projet, i.81 f. 52 J.-J. Rousseau, ‘Jugement sur le Projet de Paix Perpétuelle’, in Rousseau, Œuvres com- plètes, iii.599 f. the empire as model for saint-pierre’s projet 49

German Solon and praised Henry IV and Sully for already having envisaged a permanent peace in Europe, his argument is far from dependent on such a virtuous law-giver. Like Machiavelli he follows a double strategy:53 the ideal which ought to be achieved is a constitutional structure which can accommodate and channel all potential conflicts. A republican constitution was, therefore, the political aim. But since experience revealed that one was ill-advised to trust entirely in man’s reason and understanding, one might have to seize upon the opportunity should such a virtuous man present himself. Towards the end of the reign of Louis XIV it did not seem unrealistic that a single sovereign might have the necessary influence and power to adopt and thus enhance such a project. Saint-Pierre’s political thought was first of all a criticism of the existing political practice and theory, enshrined in the idea of a balance of power, and secondly an attempt to ameliorate this situation. The Abbé de Mably, for instance, still treated international relations as nothing more than a chain of alliances and counter alliances, wars and their subsequent peace treaties. Already the title Le Droit public de l’Europe. Fondé sur les Traitez conclus jusqu’en l’année 1740 points to the view that international relations are founded on international treaties; but there is no insight offered into their validity, nor into the inherent philosophical and practical problems, such as the ipse-iudex principle.54 According to Mably, the antagonism between William of Orange and Louis XIV led the former to propagate an alliance against France, which gave ‘naissance au sistême de l’équilibre’.55 Although the balance of power is discredited here as hardly any more than a cunning propaganda enterprise with the intention ‘à ruiner les François’,56 it is nevertheless clear that Mably did not move beyond this level of criticism. He, along with almost all other political thinkers and politicians at

53 As I have already suggested earlier in this chapter, there are also clear signs of Machi- avelli’s—in addition to Hobbes’—influence on the Abbé’s political thought. Although this aspect seems to have been completely neglected by all studies on the Abbé so far, I am unable to investigate it any further in the present context. But see my discussion of Machiavelli’s republicanism and his deliberation on the best constitution and the virtuous law-giver in my Niccolò Machiavelli (Frankfurt a.M, 2004), esp. 71–86. 54 See also the preface in Leibniz’s collection of international treaties, Codex Iuris Gen- tium, 1693, where he claims that the basis of international law is enshrined in international treaties: ‘Codex Iuris Gentium (Praefatio)’, in Leibniz, Political Writings, 170. 55 Abbé de Mably, Le Droit public de l’Europe. Fondé sur les Traitez conclus jusqu’en l’année 1740 (Amsterdam, 1748), i.183. See also ii.2 ff. Andrew Fletcher, to mention but one other political thinker, also advocated the balance of power to preserve the liberty of European states: ‘A Speech upon the State of the Nation’, in Fletcher, Political Works, ed. J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1997), 123. See also the literature mentioned above in n. 9. 56 Mably, Droit public de l’Europe, i.183. 50 peter schröder the beginning of the eighteenth century, never challenged this precarious and unstable way of conducting politics, and did not reflect on possible alternatives to address the anarchical society of European states. There can be no doubt that the Abbé de Saint-Pierre was one of the first to indicate the fundamental structural problems of international relations. In this respect he was clear-sighted and visionary, and it is perhaps no coincidence that political scientists of our days increasingly rediscover the Empire in the search for answers to the profound problems posed by the tension between sovereignty and liberty at a European and a global level.57 Saint-Pierre merits recognition as one of the first political thinkers who dared to question some of the consequences of the formation of the modern state at a time when this process was at its height. It is in retrospect no wonder that the constitution of the Empire served him as the prime model with which to challenge the problematic consequences of the formation of the early modern state.

57 See, for example, F. Speltore ‘Federalism in the History of Thought’; O. Beaud, ‘Föder- alismus und Souveränität’, Der Staat, 35 (1996), 45–66; T. Evers, ‘Supranationale Staatlich- keit am Beispiel der Europäischen Union: Civitas civitatum oder Monstrum?’, in Leviathan, 22 (1984), 115–34. ‘Once We Were Trojans!’ Contemporary Reactions to the Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation

Wolfgang Burgdorf*

List, how with dreaded mystery Was signed to my prophetic soul, Of kindred blood the dire decree:— Hither with noiseless, giant stride I saw the hideous fiend of terror glide! ‘Tis past! I strive not to control My shuddering awe—so swift of ill The Fates the warning sign fulfil. Lo! to my sense dismayed, Sudden the deed of death has shown Whate’er my boding fears portrayed. The visioned thought was pain; The present horror curdles every vein. Friedrich von Schiller, The Bride of Messina. A Tragedy The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation on 1 August 1806, with the exact dating of the individual events, has been described in detail elsewhere.1 This essay will therefore prescind from a presentation of the historical events and concentrate on the contemporary perception of the dissolution of the Empire and the subsequent hys- teresis, or disproportionately muted echo, of this event.

* Translated by Brian McNeil. 1 Wolfgang Burgdorf, Ein Weltbild verliert seine Welt. Der Untergang des Alten Reiches und die Generation 1806 (Munich, 2006); id., ‘Wendepunkt deutscher Geschichte. Das Reichsende 1806 und seine Wahrnehmung durch Zeitgenossen’, in Heinz Schilling et al. (ed.), Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation 962 bis 1806. Altes Reich und neue Staaten 1806 bis 1945 (Berlin, 2006), ii16–30; id, ‘Das Alte Reich starb in den heißen Sommerferien. Nach der Abdankung von Kaiser Franz II.: Die Erschütterung wurde von der preußisch getönten Geschichtsschreibung verdrängt’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 29 July 2006, p. 41. Eric-Oliver Mader, Die letzten ‘Priester der Gerechtigkeit’. Die Auseinandersetzung der Letzten Generation von Richtern des Reichskammergerichts mit der Auflösung des Heiligen Römischen Reiches Deutscher Nation (Berlin, 2005). Katharina Weikl, Krise ohne Alterna- tive? Das Ende des Alten Reiches 1806 in der Wahrnehmung der süddeutschen Reichsfürsten (Berlin, 2006). 52 wolfgang burgdorf

The history of the Old Empire was definitively ended in the first week of August 1806. After Napoleon had declared that the constitution of the Empire must be regarded as abrogated, the princes of the Rhine Confed- eration seceded from the Empire on 1 August. The emperor reacted to this action and to a French ultimatum by abdicating the imperial crown on 6 August 1806. This event shook the whole of Germany. The reactions can be summed up in the terms grief, shame, and rage. Even the emissaries to the imperial diet in Regensburg who had signed the declaration of secession in the name of the princes of the Rhine Confederation were outraged. The Bavarian emissary Rechberg declared on the evening of 1 August that he was ‘furious that he had to come here in order to put his signature to the destruction of the German name’.2 Not a few contemporaries declared that what had happened was so unfathomable that it was not immediately possible to comment upon it. Everywhere in the domains of the former Empire, the news of its end was met with incredulity. As late as mid-October, farmers in Thuringia refused categorically to accept the end of the Empire, which had always existed, and the abdication of the emperor. They believed that this was a plot on the part of the local authorities, before whom they were now defenceless.3 This was doubtless an extreme form of reaction, but many other examples show that contemporaries found it extremely difficult to grasp that the Empire had in fact been dissolved. The words of Goethe’s mother on 19 August have often been quoted: And I feel as if an old friend were very ill. The doctors have given up hope of his recovery, and we are assured that he is going to die—and yet despite all this certainty, one is utterly shaken when the post arrives with the news of his death. This is how I and indeed the whole city feel. Yesterday, the emperor and the Empire were omitted from prayers in church for the first time. There were illuminations, fireworks, and so on,4 but no sign of joy. It is as if we had one funeral after another—that is how our joys now look.5

2 Report by Haas, director of the chancellery, from Regensburg: Rel. 171, 2 Aug. 1806: Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv [HHStA], Reichskanzlei, Akten der Prinzipalkommi- sion, fasc. 182d. 3 Heinrich Leo, Aus meiner Jugendzeit (Gotha, 1880), 22: ‘Auch ließen sich unsere Bau- ern nicht ausreden, dass es noch immer einen deutschen Kaiser gäbe.’ 4 On the orders of Marshal Augereau, Napoleon’s birthday was celebrated with pomp on 15 August, but the people took part with a demonstrative apathy. 5 Catherina Goethe to Goethe, Frankfurt, 19 Aug. 1806, in Philipp Stein (ed.), Briefe von Goethes Mutter. Mit einer Einleitung. Christiane und Goethe (Leipzig, 1890), 255–6. Bernhard Suphan (ed.), Briefe von Goethes Mutter an ihren Sohn, Christiane und August von Goethe (Weimar, 1890), 294–7, 396. ‘once we were trojans!’ 53

The metaphor of a dead ‘friend’ was often employed in the remaining months of 1806 to express sympathy with the departed world of the Empire and with its constituent parts which were now no more.6 On the other hand, the entry in Goethe’s diary for 7 August 1806, which affirms that the ‘contention between the servant and the coachman on the box provoked more passion’ in the travellers in the coach ‘than the dividing up of the Roman Empire’, and which is often cited in accounts of the end of the Reich, is taken completely out of context.7 Like Goethe’s comment on the cannonade of Valmy,8 these words cry out to be quoted, especially because of the proximity in time to the abdication of the imperial crown on the previous day. On 7 August, however, Goethe could not have known anything about the emperor’s abdication: news did not travel so quickly at that period. The quotation refers to the secession of the princes of the Rhine Confed- eration from the Empire seven days previously. When we examine the background to this celebrated quotation from Goethe, we see that the quarrel between the coachman and Goethe’s servant on the box of the big coach put the lives of all the passengers in danger, and it was only the drama inherent in this experience on the part of Goethe, his family, and the other travellers that for the moment succeeded in thrusting into the background the topic that normally dominated all others, viz. the political situation of the day. The subsequent career (so to speak) of this quotation, which lasted up to the jubilee year of 2006, is comparable only to the career of another

6 ‘Usually, one listens with pleasure to the biography of a deceased friend whom one greatly prized, or of a remarkable man; so perhaps it will not be unpleasant for one who once had some kind of contact with the free knighthood of the empire, to hear some fragments of its history’: K.F. Neff, ‘Die Reichsritterschaft in Schwaben und am Rhein von ihrem Entstehen, bis zu ihrer Auflösung’, Der Rheinische Bund. Eine Zeitschrift historischen- politisch-statistisch-geographischen Inhalts, 6 (1806), 161–83, at 161. 7 Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Sämtliche Werke. Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche (40 vols., 2nd section, vol. 6 (33): Napoleonische Zeit, Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche vom 10. Mai 1805 bis 6. Juni 1816. Section 1: Von Schillers Tod bis 1811 (Frankfurt a.M., 1993), Tage- buch, 7.8.1806, p. 75. On the background to these words, cf. Wolfgang Burgdorf, ‘“Reichs- nationalismus” gegen “Territorialnationalismus”. Phasen der Intensivierung des nationalen Bewußtsteins in Deutschland seit dem Siebenjährigen Krieg’, in Dieter Langewiesche and Georg Schmidt (ed.), Föderative Nation. Deutschlandkonzepte von der Reformation bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg (Munich, 2000), 157–90, at 157, 189–90. 8 Goethes Werke, Hamburg edn., vol. 10 (Munich, 1998), 188–362, at 236: ‘A new epoch of world history begins from this place and time, and you can say that you were present.’ The cannonade took place on 20 September 1792. Goethe’s Campagne in Frankreich was first published in 1822. 54 wolfgang burgdorf celebrated quotation, the word that Louis XVI is said to have written in his diary on the evening of 14 July 1789, the day of the storming of the Bastille in Paris: rien, i.e. ‘nothing’, had happened.9 Two hundred years were to pass until a clever historian demonstrated on the occasion of the bicentenary in 1989 that this alleged diary of the French king was in fact only his personal list of his hunting successes. When we look at the entries in Goethe’s diary for the preceding and the following days, we see that the travellers engaged in intense discussions of contemporary politics and the dissolution of the Empire. The collapse of the Reich also forms one of the main topics in Goethe’s correspondence until the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in mid-October 1806. This means that the notorious quotation from Goethe is not in the least illustrative of the typical reaction of contemporary Germans to the disintegration of the Empire. We find a typical reaction to the news of the emperor’s abdication in the Prussian emissary to the imperial diet, Count von Goertz, who had taken part in the election of the emperor in 1792 as electoral emissary of the electorate of Brandenburg: ‘He said in a broken voice, “So the emperor whom I helped elect was the last emperor!—This step was no doubt to be expected, but that does not make its reality any the less moving and crushing. It cuts off the last thread of hope to which one tried to cling.” ’10 If we are to believe the affirmations by historians up to the present, it would seem that only a few officials who worked in the imperial institutions lamented the end of the Empire; but this was not in fact the case. An analysis of letters and diaries from every region of the Empire in the weeks and months after its collapse reveals the contemporary topography of national feelings, and shows that the sympathy which was later associated with the concept of the Reich did not first arise as a vague yearning in the course of the nineteenth-century debates about the ‘nation’. On the contrary, this sympathy was present immediately after the end of the Empire—along with a feeling of disgrace and shame and the sense of violation. Although their reactions were not identical, the very ambivalent utterances of Goethe’s mother and the Prussian emissary to the imperial diet when they heard the news of the dissolution were certainly typical. On the one hand, something of the kind had been expected; and yet the news that this had actually taken place provoked a profound consternation and

9 Winfried Schulze, Der 14. Juli 1789. Biographie eines Tage (Stuttgart, 1989), 7. 10 Report by Haas, director of the chancellery, from Regensburg, 11 Aug. 1806, in: HHStA, Reichskanzlei, Prinzipalkommission, fasc. 182. ‘once we were trojans!’ 55 sadness. In the following weeks, Germans in every part of the Empire and in every social class reacted in the same way. Many expressed their fear that the end of the Reich meant that the German people or nation too would soon come to an end.11 For many Germans, the collapse of the Empire entailed uncertainty about their identity. Johannes von Müller, the celebrated historian and historiographer to the court of Prussia, suffered a nervous breakdown when he heard of the events of 1 and 6 August, and wanted to withdraw altogether from public life. Like Johann Gottlieb Fichte and his wife, Friedrich von Gentz besought Müller to devote his future literary activities to promoting the re-establishment of Germany:12 Of all the words you have ever written to me, nothing has made me sadder than this last letter. You have never spoken to me before in such a manner—despairing of everything, abandoning everything, giving up. It is true that the times are terrible; indeed, they become more terrible day by day. But did we not expect what is now happening? And is it in reality much worse than what we foresaw? . . . I beseech you, do not abandon the great cause. . . . The greater Germany’s distress [is], the more urgent is the need of our words of encouragement and our help. So do not put off your armour! For if we give up our will to fight, we must necessarily sink down in the mud that surrounds us.13 Similarly, Christian Wilhelm von Dohm, a leading Prussian diplomat in the Empire, found it difficult to keep pace with the political developments: The fluctuating and uncertain character of the immediate future has consequences which will exercise an incalculable influence. Although one is accustomed to expect the speediest progress, that which actually happens always outstrips our boldest imagination. Who would have believed, even only a few weeks ago, that the total dissolution of the German Empire— including its formal aspects—was so imminent, and that the whole of southern Germany would be subjected in a very direct manner to the man who rules everything? Almost at the same moment that I received certain information about this . . .,14 I also hear that the French troops are marching upon Saxony.15

11 For example: Seume to Karl von Münchhausen, ca. Nov. 1806, in Jörg Drews and Dirk Sangmeister (ed.), Johann Gottfried Seume: Briefe (Frankfurt a.M., 2002), 534–7, at 537. 12 Johanna Maria Fichte to Johannes von Müller, Berlin, 28 Aug. 1806, in Hans Schulz (ed.), Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Briefwechsel, vol. 2 (Hildesheim, 1967), 420. 13 Gentz to Johannes von Müller, Dresden, 4 Aug. 1806, in Johann H. Maurer-Constant (ed.), Briefe an Johannes von Müller (6 vols., Schaffhausen, 1839–40), i.201–6. Johanna Maria Fichte to Johannes von Müller, Berlin, 28 Aug. 1806, in Schulz, Fichte, Briefwechsel, 420. 14 I.e. the peace between France and Russia which had been negotiated in Paris, but which did not take effect because the tsar refused to ratify it. 15 Christian Wilhelm von Dohm to Johannes von Müller, Pustleben, 10 Aug. 1806, in Maurer-Constant, Briefe, ii.390–4, at 390–1. 56 wolfgang burgdorf

This letter of 10 August 1806 makes it clear that the ‘window’ of time available for the contemporary confrontation with the news of the end of the Empire was very soon closed by the sensational news of the imminent war between Prussia and France. Prussia began to mobilize on 6 August, the very day on which the emperor abdicated. On 15 September, Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote from Halle that the university church was unusually well attended in the aftermath of the recent events. An intensified practice of religion helped people cope with the crisis in the summer of 1806 too.16 Despite its multi-confessional character and its tolerance, the Holy Roman Empire had never abandoned its ties to the church, and intercession was made for the emperor and the Empire every day in the churches and synagogues of the realm. These were a standard element in the liturgy, and the abandoning of these intercessions (which Frau Goethe lamented) led to public protests in parts of southern Germany and in Hamburg.17 It was only ten days after the event, on 16 August, that the final imperial patents reached Weimar via the official route.18 Christian Gottlob Voigt, minister in classical Weimar, at once informed Goethe, who was in Jena: I have just received the patent of abdication of the Roman emperor, who in future will style himself Francis I, emperor of Austria. In another patent, the Austrian emperor assumes the task of making provisions for the imperial aulic councillors [Reichshofräte] and the imperial chancellery. He rec- ommends the imperial chamber court [Reichskammergericht] to the former members of the empire. In other words, he is no semper Augustus! Voigt’s literary skill turns his perception of the collapse into an exemplum of the philosophy of history: if ‘poetry can go hand in hand with politics, then the abdication of the imperial dignity offers a wealth of material. The

16 On this, cf. in general Manfred Jakubowski and Hartmut Lehmann (ed.), Um Himmels Willen. Religion in Katastrophenzeiten (Göttingen, 2003). 17 Cf. the ‘Appeal to the citizens of Hamburg who are permitted to enter the city parliament’ by a citizen of Hamburg in August 1806. The anonymous author asks whether the council ‘is entitled to change the official church prayer, and instead of praying for the German emperor, to pray now for all emperors and princes?’ The answer follows at once: No, only the assembly of citizens as a whole, who ought to have been called together for this purpose, had the right to decide on a change of such significance. In the ancestral territories of the principal Hohenzollern line, however, the intercessions for the emperor had not been made in church since the Seven Years War. On the abandonment of these prayers, cf. Burgdorf, Weltbild, 211–17. 18 At this time, Duke Karl August was in Dresden, where negotiations were taking place to determine the future political orientation of the Saxon and Thuringian states and the founding of a common court of appeal to replace the Imperial Chamber Court. ‘once we were trojans!’ 57

Roman Empire now takes its place in the sequence of vanished empires.19 The editor of the Politisches Journal in Hamburg shared Voigt’s view: ‘This document, which now closes German imperial history,’ offers ‘rich material for a variety of reflections.’20 One month later, we read in the same journal: ‘If Klopstock were still alive, it would be his task to intone the funeral chant before the sarcophagus of the German empire.’21 Both the author of the Politisches Journal and Voigt had underestimated the impact of this historical event, which was so traumatic that it was impossible to make literary sense of it at once. Besides this, the Germany of the Rhine Confederation and the Germany occupied by French troops were now entering an epoch of censorship much fiercer than anything in the Old Empire. In the perception of the Germans, the collapse of the Reich did not become the great epic of their national history; decades were to pass before Goethe treated these experiences in the primal Ger- man drama, Faust Part II. This was presented in 1832 to a new generation who could no longer make the associative link to the vanished Empire. Too much had happened in the meantime, and too much now separated the majority of the living from an empire that belonged to the past. In mid-August 1806, Voigt placed his hope in confidential talks between the duke of Saxony-Weimar and the electoral prince in Dresden about the future politics governing their relationship, which should include as many common elements as possible: ‘The distress of the present time may perhaps make them more friendly than is otherwise the case.’ Harking back to the events of the first week in August, he added that it was ‘a remarkable coincidence that there was no more space in the Römer for any additional imperial portrait’.22 Goethe later took over this reflection for the first Book of Dichtung und Wahrheit, projecting it back into the time of his childhood.23

19 Voigt to Goethe, 16 Aug. 1806, in Hans Tümmler (ed.), Goethes Briefwechsel mit Chris- tian Gottlob Voigt (3 vols, Weimar, 1955), iii. 120–1. 20 Politisches Journal, 8th fascicle, Aug. 1806, 850–6: ‘XII. Emperor Francis II abdicates the German imperial crown.’ 21 Ibid., vol. 2, Sept. 1806, 881–90, at 889. 22 Voigt to Goethe, Weimar, 16 August 1806, in Tümmler, Goethes Briefwechsel, iii.121. The ‘Römer’ is the town hall in Frankfurt am Main. After the election or coronation of the emperors in the early modern period, a banquet was held in a room in this building which was decorated with portraits of all the emperors since Charlemagne. 23 Goethe, Dichtung und Wahrheit, Hamburg edn., ix.21. 58 wolfgang burgdorf

In his reply, Goethe writes about the ‘public unease’ to which the most recent news has given rise in Jena.24 Contemporary sources relate that the news of the dissolution of the Empire provoked disturbances in the population of other cities too. For example, a contemporary reports from Vienna that the Austrian people initially found the loss of the ancient imperial crown ‘incomprehensible. . . . The Viennese were horrified.’ The ‘disappearance of so many offices and dignities’ threatened both their income and the satisfaction of their curiosity.25 Such disturbances were to be expected in the towns which were home to the institutions of the Empire, viz. Vienna, Regensburg, Wetzlar, and the locations of the active diets of the imperial circles [Reichskreistage]; but the example of Jena shows that this reaction to the end of the Empire was very widespread. Some days later, Goethe noted that ‘it is difficult to maintain one’s own equilibrium when people’s feelings are so unstable’.26 On 22 August, Duchess Luise of Saxe-Weimar wrote to Prince Christian of Hessen: ‘I may remark that I ought to have written to you on paper with a black edging, as a sign of our grief at the tragic end of the German constitution.’ This ‘grief is deeply engraved upon my soul, and doubtless upon yours as well.’27 This sentiment was no doubt shared by the members of the lesser imperial aristocracy as a whole, although (unlike those states, formerly reichsunmittelbar, which had been incorporated into larger states) they did not lose their entire constitutional position when the Empire came to an end. In the small territories, there was widespread fear of further waves of incorporation into the larger states. Disorienta- tion and uncertainty dominated the atmosphere in those small states which continued to exist for the time being, after the laws of the Empire, to which they had grown accustomed, suddenly ceased to exist. On 31 August, Voigt informed Goethe that the duke would come to Jena on the following day: ‘I need not take the trouble to depict the confusion of our political ideas for you, since Serenissimus Serenissime Regens (as someone recently wrote) is the one best placed to explain to you the confusion in politics today.’28 On 3 September, Voigt wrote to Goethe’s future brother-

24 Goethe to Voigt in Eisenach, Jena, 19 Aug. 1806, in Tümmler, Goethes Briefwechsel, iii.122. 25 Friedrich Anton von Schönholz, Traditionen zur Charakteristik Österreichs, seines Staats- und Volkslebens unter Franz I. (Leipzig, 1844, repr. Munich, 1914), 130. 26 Goethe to Voigt, Jena, 23 Aug. 1806, in Tümmler, Goethes Briefwechsel, iii.124–5. 27 Eckart Kleßmann, Deutschland unter Napoleon in Augenzeugenberichten (2nd edn, Munich, 1982), 95. 28 Voigt to Goethe, Weimar, 31 Aug. 1806, in Tümmler, Goethes Briefwechsel, iii.128. ‘once we were trojans!’ 59 in-law, August Vulpius: ‘I am completely absorbed by the circumstances of the present day, for the crisis was never so great.’29 In mid-September, Wieland lamented ‘the apocalyptic time into which we have fallen’. No clearer expression of the alienation and the experience of loss could have been found than this allusion to the end of the world. He hoped that Russia would protect Saxe-Weimar because of the hereditary princess, the Imperial Grand Duchess Maria Paulovna, ‘and no doubt this is what she wishes—But—But—and once again But. . . . Our political and moral misery is great. Who can bear this disgrace, which weighs down upon a nation that was once so glorious?—May God improve things, if it is still possible to improve them!’30 In the aftermath of the events of August 1806, we find a very large number of affirmations in contemporary letters and diaries that the authors desire to withdraw from public business; this desire was subsequently intensified by the Prussian catastrophe. The most radical form of this inner emigration is doubtless the view taken by Johann Gottfried Seume that there could be no more German poetry after Austerlitz—or at least, no more German poetry written by him. Since Ulm and Austerlitz, I have not written one single syllable in German, and since Jena, I have not read one single syllable in German, and from that time onwards, I have gloomily refused every request to do so. I am too much of a Teuton to remain unaffected by the disgrace of my fatherland, and too much of a man to whine about our misery. We are so wretched that not even the ultimate act is permitted. My life is with the dead. If a note were to come forth from my soul, you would certainly not be permitted to hand it on to others. I shall write no more poetry, and my striving is at an end.31

29 Voigt to Vulpius, Weimar, Wed. 3 Sept. 1806, in Andreas Meier (ed.), Christian August Vulpius. Eine Korrespondenz zur Kulturgeschichte der Goethezeit, Vol. 1: Brieftexte. Vol. 2: Kommentar (Berlin, 2003), 432. 30 Wieland to Karl August Böttiger, Tiefurt, mid-Sept. 1806, in Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Siegfried Scheibe (ed.), Wielands Briefwechsel, vol. 17/1 (Jan. 1806–Sept. 1809), 1st section (Munich, 1998), 127–30. On Böttiger (1760–1835), cf. Neue Deutsche Biographie [NDB] ii.414; Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie [ADB], iii.205–7. 31 Seume to Georg Friedrich Treitschke, Leipzig, end of Jan. 1807, in Drews and Sang- meister, Seume, Briefe, 537–8. At the end of 1806, Treitschke had asked Seume to write some poems for publication. It took Seume a year to overcome his writer’s block. His words about the impossibility of writing poetry after Austerlitz are not comparable to the dictum of Theodor W. Adorno that it would be barbaric ‘to write a poem after Auschwitz’, and the history of the impact made by these two quotations is exactly antithetical. Adorno’s words struck to the heart of those who were culturally creative and productive, but they recovered quickly after 1945 and began to assimilate Adorno’s critique of culture. Adorno’s statement was made in 1949; seventeen years later, he himself revoked it: Adorno, Pris- men, Kulturkritik und Gesellschaft (Munich, 1963), 26. The essential difference between the 60 wolfgang burgdorf

Seume’s words hint at the nothingness of all that exists in the face of the vicissitudes of the world, and this is also how we should understand Adelbert Chamisso’s declaration that there is no longer any point in producing almanacs.32 Such remarks were made in a situation where private consumption was declining because of the continual wars, the interruption of postal communications which often lasted for months on end, and the dramatically rising burdens of taxation; in summer 1806, the literary market in Germany had largely collapsed. This was a period of dramatic transition, which had neither money nor time for poetry. Seume was far from alone in his remark that he had stopped reading German texts because of the political situation. Many of his contemporaries said the same. For example, Count Goertz withdrew to the coun- tryside after the catastrophe, first of the Empire and then of Prussia, and avoided reading the newspapers.33 The anatomist Samuel Thomas Söm- mering was so disgusted by politics that he stopped reading the newspapers immediately after the battle of Austerlitz, and avoided discussions of the contemporary political situation.34 This refusal to take an active part in politics was itself a form of inner emigration. Every catastrophe has its own image, but the greater the catastrophe, the more limited is the iconography of the horror, since it must always appeal to something that is well known, in order to clothe in words that which is incomprehensible. Confronted by the end of the Empire, many learned men in 1806 employed the metaphor of the fall of Troy, Ilion which perished in the flames, to express the extent of the national catastrophe.35 At that period, Wieland received a letter from his son-in-law, Karl Leon- hard Reinhold (Fichte’s predecessor as professor of philosophy in Jena). Reinhold, who was in Kiel in the far north, wondered whether his sons

aphorisms of Seume and Adorno is that Seume is describing his private, subjective feeling, whereas Adorno’s observation refers comprehensively to the state of the society and of its culture. 32 Chamisso to Fanny Hertz in Hamburg, Hameln, 5 Nov. 1806, in Julius Eduard Hitzig (ed.), Leben und Briefe von Adelbert von Chamisso, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1839), 168–9. 33 [Johann Eustach von Goertz,] Memoiren eines deutschen Staatsmannes aus den Jah- ren 1788–1816 (Leipzig, 1833), 201. 34 Rudolph Wagner (ed.), Samuel Thomas von Sömmerings Leben und Verkehr mit Zeit- genossen (Leipzig, 1844), 138. 35 For example: Gentz to Johannes von Müller, Breslau, 23 Dec. 1805, in Maurer-Constant, Briefe, i.154–63, at 161, quoting Aeneid 2.624–5 (the first-person singular narrative of the fall of Troy, Iliupersis). Friedrich von Gentz to Adam Müller, Breslau, 25 Dec. 1805, in Brief- wechsel zwischen Friedrich von Gentz und Adam Heinrich Müller, 1800–29 (Stuttgart, 1857), 72–3. ‘once we were trojans!’ 61 ought to take up a career in the administration of the country after finishing their studies, since kingdoms and countries were suddenly disap- pearing on every side, and what would happen if Holstein soon ceased to exist? But who is sure of himself and of his situation now? And who can enjoy his domestic prosperity in calm, if he is a German—or rather, was one? Nam fuimus Troes!36 O my best beloved father, why am I not permitted to weep out my sorrow on your bosom! Naturally, what happened did not take me by surprise. The foundations were clearly laid by the Peace of Basle, Lüneville, and Pressburg. But what a wretched consolation to see that Germany has surrendered its own self! Germany would still exist—and that means that Europe’s equilibrium would also exist—if some of its heads had not lacked a heart, and some of its heads had not lacked a brain!37 Reinhold’s opinion ‘that Germany has surrendered its own self’ agreed entirely with Wieland’s point of view. When he spoke of the end of the Empire in his letters, he normally did not even mention Napoleon and the French. Like Friedrich von Gentz, Adam Müller, Johannes von Müller and many others, Reinhold too employed the image of the fall of Troy.38 In the letters exchanged at this time, Troy becomes in a unique manner synonymous with the national collapse, an image of total destruction, the end of a culture, the eradication of a state. On 23 October 1806, the aged Wieland wrote the words ‘Fuimus Troes’ in the family book of Adam Oehlenschläger.39 The reference to the Trojan inferno had its roots in the oldest narrative traditions in Europe. The immediate ‘availability’ in 1806 of the image of Troy’s catastrophe was however also a consequence of the huge popular- ity of the translations of classical literature by Johann Heinrich Voss the Elder, who had translated the Iliad and the Odyssey into Germany in 1781 and 1783. These translations were regarded as model texts of the highest literary quality, and their enduring cultural presence was due not least to the associated theory of the correct way to reproduce classical poetical metres in German—the subject of intense debates on the literary scene. The German commentaries on Homer by Johann Heinrich Justus Köppen,

36 ‘For once we were Trojans!’ In other words: we have seen better days: Vergil, Aeneid 2.274. 37 Karl Leonhard Reinhold to Wieland, beginning of Nov. 1806, in Scheibe, Wielands Briefwechsel, sect.1, 141–2. 38 Cf. n. 35 above. 39 Entry in the diary of the Danish archaeologist Johann Heinrich Carl Koes, 8–23 Oct. 1806, Weimar, in Goethejahrbuch, 27 (1906), 118–24, at 124. 62 wolfgang burgdorf published in six parts from 1792 onwards, were likewise very popular in the years leading up to 1806.40 The two-volume translation of the Iliad by Count Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg, first published in 1778, also remained popular. The historical painters Franz and Johann Riepen- hausen, who quickly became celebrated, made their joint debut in 1803. Their reconstruction of Polygnotus’ painting The Fall of Troy in the Lesche at Delphi evoked wide interest and was praised by Goethe.41 As early as spring 1798, Schiller warned Goethe, who was thinking of a new treatment of this material, that there could be no Iliad after the Iliad. This is a variation on the Latin proverb Ilias post Homerum (‘an Iliad after Homer’), which means that one cannot repeat something that has already been done perfectly.42 In view of the present situation, however, Schiller later conceded that ‘it is doubtless more a strength than a weakness of the Trojan material that it corresponds to the demands of our own age’.43 It is however striking that Virgil is quoted more frequently than Homer in this context in 1806. Many further German and Latin editions followed Gottsched’s publication of a Latin-German edition of the Aeneid in 1742 (with a new edition in 1760). In 1799, Johann Heinrich Voss had published a three-volume edition of Virgil’s works.44

40 Johann Heinrich Justus Köppen, Erklärende Anmerkungen zum Homer (6 vols, Hanover, 1792–1810). The first edition of the first volume came out in 1787. By 1805, five parts had been published, forming a commentary on the first twenty books of Homer. In 1810, the preacher Johann Christian Heinrich Krause published a sixth part as a commentary to books 21–4. On Köppen (1755–91), cf. ADB, xvi.700–1. After his studies in Göttingen, he became a schoolmaster there. He edited many classical works with commentaries, for use in schools. 41 The ‘Fall of Troy’ was a chef d’oeuvre of Polygnotus (ca. 480–440 BCE). This Lesche was the hall where the men of Cnidus assembled; Cnidus was a Greek city on the south- western coast of Asia Minor. On Franz (1786–1831) and Johann (1788–1860) Riepenhausen, cf. ADB, xxviii.567; NDB, xxi.601–2. 42 This phrase was borrowed by Jacob Friedrich Reimann, philologist, literary historian, and superintendent in Hildesheim (1688–1743), for the title of his work Ilias post Homerum, hoc est incunabula omnium scientiarum ex Homero eruta et systematice descripta (Lemgo, 1728). 43 Schiller to Goethe, Jena, Friday 18 May 1798, in Otto Dann (ed.), Friedrich Schiller, Werke und Briefe. Vol. 12: Briefe II: 1795–1805 (Frankfurt a.M., 2002), 389–91. 44 Aeneis in deutsche Verse übersetzt von Johann Christian Schwarz. Mit einer Vorrede des Herrn Professors Gottsched (Regensburg, 1742, Latin-German; new edition ibid., 1760). Theodor Lau, Publius Vergilius Maro, Uebersetzung in Deutscher Helden Poesie, Des Virgil- ianischen Lobes- und Lebenslauffs, Des grossen Kriegshelden Aeneas, mit kurzverfaßter Bey- fügung, erforderlicher Anmerkungen . . . (Hamburg, 1743). Aeneis in deutsche Verse übersetzt (Göttingen, 1752). Franz Regis Crauer, Fußnote Text lat. und dt. Aeneis (Basle, 1783). Georg Heinrich Höhden, Aeneis in zwölf Büchern, zum Gebrauche auf Schulen (Braunschweig, 1793, German text). Encyclopädie der lateinischen Classiker. Text lat., Inhaltsang. dt. Aeneis ins deutsche übersetzt von Joseph Spitzenberger (Munich, 1796). Johann Heinrich Voss (ed.), Publius Vergilius Maro, Werke (3 vols, Braunschweig, 1799). ‘once we were trojans!’ 63

The allusion to Virgil’s Aeneid is a spark of hope even in the metaphor of the fall of Troy, for this epic ends with the foundation of Rome and the beginning of a glorious new history. The translatio imperii is possible. In a double sense, the fall is here both catharsis and the presupposition of future greatness. Troy had to be destroyed, so that Aeneas’ steps could be directed to Italy. Aeneas had to descend into the underworld in order to learn about the future of Rome. Now, the divine providence and promises had determined the history and the greatness of Rome. It was however only for a brief period, in the late summer and autumn of 1806, that the reception of Virgil succeeded in moving reflection on Homer into the background. In general, the German reactions to Homer, both before this time and afterwards, were much more productive than their reactions to Virgil. For all its literary beauty, Virgil’s work contains recognizable elements of a grasp of political realities—but after they had lost the Empire, the Germans moved further and further away from political realities. The Iliad ends with the intoxicating aesthetic of destruction, and the Odyssey ends with a romance. In contrast to the closing matrimonial idyll in Homer, Virgil’s account of the flight of Aeneas always aims at the foundation of a new state. The metaphor of Troy, as mediated by Vir- gil, gave writers and readers some measure of consolation and of hope in a distant future that would surpass the splendour of the past and eradicate the disgrace of the present. Indeed, this future would confer a meaning on the collapse, which would then be seen as preparing the way for something that outstripped in greatness all that had previously existed. From August 1806 onwards, Troy occupied a unique position in the utterances of the German intelligentsia. More than any other real, literary, or mythi- cal place, it was synonymous with the collapse of the nation. The fall of Troy proved a highly evocative image for the description of the end of the Old Empire, since it evoked a total devastation. Thanks to the renaissance of interest in Homer and Virgil in Germany in the years leading up to 1806, the image of the end of Troy was readily accessible. The combination of total destruction, the end of the world, horror and desolation in the metaphor of Troy was also present in the frequently- used image of the ‘apocalypse’.45 Believers may have found consolation in the idea that after the world came to an end and Satan was conquered, the kingdom of God would be established in perfection on earth. The definitive character of the evocations of Troy and the apocalypse reflects the

45 For example, Wieland to Karl August Böttiger, Tiefurt, mid-Sept. 1806, in Scheibe, Wielands Briefwechsel, 1st sect., 127–30. 64 wolfgang burgdorf fact that many Germans were no longer able to withstand the continuous terror of the epoch and that they longed for an end that would permit them to hope in a new beginning. Many letters written between early August and mid-October 1806 bear witness to the apathy, fatalism, and resignation of people who had repeatedly seen how every change only worsened the situation of their nation. In this situation, the image of the apocalypse and of the dying city of Troy offered the possibility of speaking meaningfully of the numberless individual tragedies, the nameless distress and absurdity, that accompanied the destruction of the Empire. This made it possible to see a meaning in the events since 1792 which retrospection revealed to be preliminary steps towards the end. The locus communis of a ‘quiet’ disappearance of the Old Empire is thus merely a legend of Prussian historiography which continued to be handed on, without closer examination, in the Federal Republic of Germany. This cliché is one of the central props of the dominant national narrative which is oriented to the foundation of the kleindeutsch Prussian Empire in 1871. The soundings we have taken in the late summer of 1806 make a very different impression: the evidence of the sources is unambiguous. People everywhere in Germany were utterly shaken when they saw that a thousand years of history had lost their value, and they struggled to find the right words to describe this event—or else they noted their own speechlessness. In particular, the change in the liturgy, with the elimina- tion or replacement of the intercessions for the emperor and the Empire in the daily church prayers, led to many complaints and protests, which also appeared in printed form but were immediately suppressed by the censors.46 Another theme that deeply affected many contemporaries and was discussed in letters, diaries, and memoirs was the breach of oaths, for at that period oaths of service and of loyalty meant something very different from what they mean today.47 The intensity of these testimonies from August (after people had heard of the event) to mid-October 1806 might lead us to suppose that the debate about the end of the Empire would have gone on for a long time, but this was not the case. The discipline imposed by the increasing political repression soon proved effective; other factors were sensational individual measures such as the shooting of the Nuremberg bookseller Johann Philipp Palm on 26 August 1806. Palm, the unsuccessful ‘Curtius’ of the

46 Burgdorf, Weltbild, 211–17. 47 Ibid., 147–54. ‘once we were trojans!’ 65

German Empire, had published Deutschland in seiner tiefen Erniedrigung [Germany in its profound humiliation], the last pamphlet to proclaim an imperial patriotism.48 Even before the new war became the dominant topic, censorship and a system of spies suppressed lamentations and grief at the end of the Reich. On 14 August 1806, Max I Joseph wrote to his son, Crown Prince Louis, about the circumstances in which the Rhine Confederation had been founded: ‘My dear Louis, believe your fifty-year-old father: an intrigue lies behind it. I could write much to you about this, but I do not trust the paper.’49 Margravine Amalia of Baden wrote as early as 24 February 1806 to her sister, Duchess Luise of Saxe-Weimar: ‘I have just received a warning from Paris that the letters I sent by post have been opened’. Worse was to follow: ‘. . . copied, my entire correspondence with Caroline for a year’ was in Napoleon’s hands.50 Obviously, Napoleon trusted his closest allies just as little as they trusted him. This was no new problem: many other letter-writers found themselves handicapped in the same way as the king and the margravine. Already during the Third Coalition War, the painter Friedrich Meier wrote on 29 October 1805 from Dresden to his friend Wilhelm von Gerlach, in reaction to the battle of Ulm: ‘You would scarcely believe how much I am affected by these times in which we live and by every piece of bad news from Austria. I no longer have any tranquil moments, since one cannot be certain that one’s letters will not be broken open.’51 One year after the king of Bavaria mentioned this subject, the orientalist Friedrich von Diez spoke cautiously about the same problem in a letter to Johannes von Müller: ‘The only thing we can say now is that we must be silent, since one can no longer write everything one has on one’s mind—not even in

48 Bernt Ture von zur Mühlen, Napoleons Justizmord am deutschen Buchhändler Johann Philipp Palm (Frankfurt a.M., 2003). According to a saga, the earth in the Roman Forum opened up in 362 BCE. The fissure became ever wider and threatened to swallow up the entire city. The augurs prophesied that the earth would close only after the greatest treasure of the city had been sacrificed. Marcus Curtius, a young Roman of noble birth, held that Rome’s greatest treasure was its young people. In order to save Rome, therefore, he mounted his horse in full armour and plunged into the abyss. From that very moment on, the fissure began to close. The Romans called this place lacus Curtius (Livy, 7.6). 49 Kurt von Raumer, ‘ “Préfecture française”. Montgelas und die Beurteilung der napo- leonischen Rheinbundpolitik’, in Konrad Repgen and Stephen Skalweit (ed.), Spiegel der Geschichte. Festgabe für Max Braubach, (Münster, 1964), 656, n. 55. 50 Quoted from Eckart Kleßmann, Deutschland unter Napoleon, 63. 51 Ibid., 47. 66 wolfgang burgdorf letters. I see this from your letter, and you will see it from mine.’52 Nev- ertheless, Dietz, who had had to do without postal services for more than a year, could not refrain after such a long period from mentioning the events of recent history. But no matter what may have happened, there was nothing there that surprised me, unless it be the speed with which empires meet their end, when God visits them; for although one may have heard a thousand stories of such events, one can never be sufficiently prepared in one’s own person to bear with equanimity the blow at Huy that brought down to the lowest position that which was highest, and also decides about our own tranquillity and happiness.53 After this description of being violated by something that had in fact been long expected, he continued: ‘If you believe that the new supervision of the post means that one cannot exchange views about secular matters of the state or the governments, then you are completely correct.’54 Since he hoped that the spies would be uneducated men, he then discussed the most recent events in Latin. On 22 October 1806, the historian Berthold Georg Niebuhr wrote to his sister-in-law: ‘Our flight is far off and sad. I cannot tell you in writing everything that I fear.’55 A comment by Sömmering in Munich on Heyne’s announcement of his lectures for the winter semester 1805–6 shows that the possibilities of free speech and the conditions which determined what could be said and what could not be said varied from place to place. ‘Jakobi and I are very happy about the courage that you show in your most recent programme with reference to the traits of Alexander. No one would have dared to say anything like that here, although we are so far away from the Rhine and the foreigners.’56 The classical scholar had given ‘Alexander the Great’

52 Diez to Johannes von Müller, Colberg, 28 August 1807, in Maurer-Constant, Briefe, iv.352–3. 53 Ibid., 353. The emphasis on the thousandfold expectation of the end surely suggests that Diez is speaking here of the Roman-German Empire, not of Prussia. Although they are separated by roughly a year, a thousand kilometres, and closed borders between the territories, there is a striking similarity to the celebrated reaction of Goethe’s mother. 54 Ibid., 355. 55 [Dore Hensler,] Lebensnachrichten über Barthold Georg Niebuhr aus Briefen desselben und aus Erinnerungen einiger seiner nächsten Freunde (3 vols, Hamburg, 1838–9), i.252: to his sister-in-law, Dore Hensler, Stetting, 22 Oct. 1806. 56 Wagner, Sömmerings Leben, 136. This is a quotation from a letter. On 5 December, Sömmering wrote to Heyne: ‘It is sad that poor Germany must now provide food for so many French people, beginning with Bonaparte and his wife.’ ‘once we were trojans!’ 67 the traits of Napoleon, thereby endorsing the widespread anti-French attitude of the students in Göttingen. Sömmering’s comment was written on 14 September 1805 and makes it clear that as early as that date, nine months before the execution of Palm, the limits of what might be said in Bavaria were tightly drawn.57 Around November 1806, Seume wrote to Karl von Münchhausen from Leipzig: ‘People tell me here that all letters are broken open and read.’ However, he was not willing to allow this to deter him from political reflections: ‘I do not consider that I should take one single footstep in the direction of the world today, and still less—as you see—do I consider it worth the price of hypocrisy.’58 Seume continued with a merciless critique of the system of aristocracy and privilege in the Old Empire. He blamed the collapse on this system and on the ingrained obstinacy of the princes. There was even a specific concept for the widespread reluctance to express one’s genuine political views in letters, or indeed to write letters at all, viz. Briefscheu [aversion to letters]. For example, August Wolf employs this term in order to explain to Müller why he does not write anything about the fate of the University of Halle, which had been shut down by Napoleon after anti-French protests in 1806. ‘One cannot say anything about the hard fate met by the university, although three pages would suffice to give an account of it.’59 In mid-1808, Wolf made the following comment on the fact that letters had lost their private character: In the present situation, there are three things that would entice me to go even into the remotest barbarian lands: the completely undisturbed

57 In Nazi propaganda, Palm was regarded as a pioneer of the people and a martyr: cf. e.g. Martin Riegel, Der Buchhändler Johann Philipp Palm. Ein Lebensbild (Hamburg, 1938); Otto Tschirch, Geschichte der öffentlichen Meinung in Preußen vom Baseler Frieden bis zum Zusammenbruch des Staates (2 vols, Weimar 1933–4), ii.360–3; id., ‘Die Flugschrift “Deutschland in seiner tiefsten [!] Erniedrigung” und ihr Verfasser’, Historische Zeitschrift, 165 (1942), 47–71; ADB, xxv.102–4; ADB, xxviii. 808 (correction); NDB, xx. 20–1. 58 Seume to Karl von Münchhausen, ca. November 1806: Drews and Sangmeister, Seume, Briefe, 534–7, at 534–5. 59 August Wolf, Halle, 21 Mar. 1807, in Maurer-Constant, Briefe, iv.365–70, at 366–7. The closing of the university proved counterproductive, since the students at Halle dispersed to the other German universities, where they were hailed as heroes and thus spread the anti-Napoleonic spirit. Some professors were happy, however, to be able to devote themselves to their studies, freed from the distraction of students. ‘You may scarcely believe this of a person who lives in Halle, but I am in a happy situation from most points of view, since I can get on with work I have begun in the last twenty-four years, now that no more lectures are held’ (ibid.). 68 wolfgang burgdorf

possession of my own time with some adequate, good literary aids; then the wish rather to have no fatherland at all, if I cannot attain a fatherland such as I wish; and finally, the longing to write about affairs and persons in Germany in a manner that is possible only far from Germany and for the eyes of coming generations only.60 Looking back on this period, Sulpiz Boisserée wrote: ‘The situation of the world was so distressing for the friends of the German fatherland at that period that one was obliged to keep one’s distance from everything.’61 On 11 August 1806, Gentz felt it necessary to reassure Johannes von Mül- ler, who had been terrified by the openness with which he had discussed political themes in his last letter: ‘Dearest friend, you will receive this letter by a private courier! I can therefore write boldly, without frightening you. After your last letter, I must fear that this would in fact be the case.’62 The situation in 1806 was such that one had to assume that political discussions in a letter would compromise one’s recipient; at the very least, one had to bear in mind that the addressee would not wish to see such remarks. Thus, when Heyne summarized the political situation in a letter to Sömmering in mid-June 1806 in the sentence, ‘all justice has vanished from the world’, it was almost by a reflex action that he closed with the following words: ‘Pardon me for burdening you by inserting these words.’63 At the end of October, Caroline Schelling too wrote to her mother about her fear that French spies might breach the secrecy of her letter: ‘I would indeed like to speak to you—for it is so easy for a letter like this to fall into the hands of the moniteur. Up to now, however, I have not lost one single letter.’64 Hidden allusions and innuendoes are widespread in the letters written in and around August 1806, and innuendo remained a common instrument of communication until the autumn of 1813; after a brief phase of liberality after the Congress of Vienna, it took on a renewed significance. After being practiced for generations in the exchange of private and

60 August Wolf, Berlin, 3 June 1808, ibid. 61 Sulpiz Boisserée, Briefwechsel—Tagebücher (2 vols, Stuttgart, 1862, repr. Göttingen, 1970), 32. He continues: ‘Naturally, Germany’s disgrace had already become proverbial at the concluding report of the Imperial Deputation, but the consequences of the division and humiliation became obvious in their full and terrible extent only in the period of the misery of Austria and Prussia.’ 62 Gentz to Johannes von Müller, Dresden, 4 August 1806, in Maurer-Constant, Briefe, i.201–6, at 201. 63 Heyne to Sömmering, Göttingen, 13 June 1806, in Wagner, Sömmerings Leben, 102. 64 Caroline to her mother, Luise Wiedemann, Munich, 30 Nov. 1806, in Begegnung mit Caroline. Briefe von Caroline Schlegel-Schelling (Leipzig, 1984), 327–30. ‘once we were trojans!’ 69 political letters, innuendo developed increasingly into a favourite stylistic device of the press in the nineteenth century. To begin with, however, it was primarily used in correspondence. ‘I believe that the sapienti sat is admirably observed here, and that was the essential thing’, wrote Franz Volkmar Reinhard, the principal court preacher in Dresden, to Johannes von Müller early in 1807, in reply to a letter to which Müller had attached the memorial lecture about Frederick II from 29 January.65 The formula sapienti sat, which had been in common use since classical antiquity in situations of censorship and the breach of the privacy of letters (and remained so under the dictatorships of the twentieth century and in other parts of the world), became the implicit instrument of communication between scholars; it was seldom stated explicitly. Sapienti sat: ‘It suffices for the one who knows.’ The one who has eyes to see, will see, and the one who has ears to hear, will hear. The fear of sending politically compromising material by post, or indeed of putting it in writing at all, was not born in 1806. It is probably as old as writing itself, and it regularly intensified in political crises and in periods of violent rule. In this age of wars, the French or their spies were not the only ones from whom people wanted to keep their innermost thoughts a secret. For example, as early as 1795, Scharnhorst hesitated to communicate to his wife by post his displeasure at the imminent peace agreement in Basle.66 Such doubts were not in harmony with the official policy of Prussia. In the autumn of 1806, almost the whole of Germany was occupied by French troops, and they were present as allies in the states of the Rhine Confederation too. The suspicion that letters were not a secure means of communication led to a general reluctance to discuss political matters, since this could incur the displeasure of the French authorities and lead to repressions. One of our main sources for the history of this period is letters. The widespread Briefscheu and the fear that the secrecy of postal communications would be breached meant that many letters were simply not written. Besides that, many correspondents or letter-writers at this time consistently avoided discussing politics. All around them, empires that had lasted for a thousand years were crashing to the ground, great

65 Franz Volkmar Reinhard to Johannes von Müller, Dresden, 13 February 1807, in Mau- rer-Constant, Briefe, vi.138–141, at 139. 66 Scharnhorst to his wife, Osnabrück, 18 Mar. 1795, in Karl Lennebach (ed.), Scharn- horsts Briefe. Vol. 1: Privatbriefe, Militär-Intendanturrat und Vorstand der Intendantur der 29. Divisio (Munich, 1914), 158–161, at 160. 70 wolfgang burgdorf powers were reduced to the status of second- and third-level states, new kingdoms arose and passed away . . . but they insisted on the exclusive discussion of private, professional, or academic subjects. Where there is no explicit documentation of such a decision, we cannot determine whether these are forms of inner emigration. It is fascinating to see time and again how those letter-writers or dia- rists who explicitly affirm that political remarks in a written form are dangerous at the present day nevertheless cannot refrain from making such remarks. In the same way, it is precisely those authors who specifically state that in future they will restrict their activity to their private circle, their work, or their studies, and will never under any circumstances take part again in public business, who usually cannot refrain from document- ing this decision in detail. In some writers, we find a sudden shock as they realize what they are saying—and they abruptly change the subject. The locus communis of the impossibility of finding adequate words both captures and exorcises the sudden shock, the fear of the loss of their own national identity, and the unfathomable extent of the national humiliation. It is however clear that others cultivated correspondence at this time as a form of resistance to the division of Germany into individual sovereign states and to hostile political systems. We note an endeavour to emphasize the common elements which transcended the systemic boundaries—the Germany which was influenced by Napoleon, or the Rhine Confederation, Prussia and the neutral zone, or the occupied Germany and Austria and the territories which were loyal to the emperor—for example by refus- ing to mention disagreements, and either avoiding mention of political problems at all, or else describing these problems as a shared misfortune. Again and again, we find an insistence that all belong to the same nation. Sometimes these authors speak of the tormenting fear that they may soon face one another as combatants in hostile armies: many were profoundly disturbed by the idea of Germans fighting against Germans and shooting at each other. Nowhere do we find anything resembling euphoria about the future, not even in letters from the rising states of the Rhine Confederation. On the contrary, the kaleidoscope of contemporary correspondence shows us a nadir of disillusionment. The Coalition Wars and the growing political dominance of France, with the dramatic intensification of events in 1806, looked in Germany like a descent into hell, from the bright age of the Enlightenment into a dark epoch of unbridled militarization, war, governments which intruded into every sphere of life, and an absolutism which ‘once we were trojans!’ 71 now reigned unchecked. The majority of the letter-writers share the feeling of a common national misfortune, which they often describe as the loss of German dignity. It is obvious that as late as 1806, many Germans still understood the Empire as a point of reference for shared ideal values and as a community with a common destiny. It is only rarely that we find malicious comments on the end of the Empire or on the defeats of the German great powers. There was however a decline in private correspondence in 1806–7. This was not due only to the disinclination to put political ideas in writing, nor to the disruption of postal communications because of troop movements and war. Another factor was a fundamental transformation in the German postal service as a whole. Already in the early 1790s, the imperial post, which was in the hands of the house of Taxis, had increasingly moved on to the defensive vis-à-vis the territorial systems. After the foundation of the Rhine Confederation, the imperial postal system fragmented into thirty exclusive territorial postal systems. In some areas, postal services completely ceased for a time.67 This made the times more difficult both for letter-writers and for travellers.68 The increasing plurality of tariffs was confusing and discouraging. It was in the context of the fragmentation of the postal system after the foundation of the Rhine Confederation that the standard expression das alte Reich [the Old Empire] first made its appearance. Heinrich August Ottokar Reichard, the author of one of the most popular handbooks for travellers at this time, used that phrase from 1806 onwards to designate the area in which the reliable postal tariffs of the house of Taxis were still valid. ‘The Old Empire’ served as an antithetical concept to those parts of the former Reich in which the direction of the post had been taken over by the newly emergent sovereign states and a chaotic plurality of tariffs now existed.69

67 Herbert Burkarth, ‘“Lieber wurden sie Badisch . . .”. Die Mediatisierung der Speth’schen reichsritterschaftlichen Herrschaften Gammertingen und Hettingen’, in Volker Himmelein and Hans U. Rudolf (ed.), Alte Klöster—Neue Herren. Die Säkularisation im deutschen Süd- westen 1803 (2 vols in 3 parts, Sigmaringen, 2003), ii.2, 873–82, at 880. 68 This prompted the representatives of the previous imperial constitutional law to do what they had always done: they published proposals for reform, e.g. Johann Ludwig Klüber, Das Postwesen in Deutschland wie es war, ist und sein könnte (Erlangen, 1811). 69 For example: Heinrich August Ottokar Reichard, Der Passagier auf der Reise in Deutschland und einigen angrenzenden Ländern, vorzüglich in Hinsicht auf seine Belehrung, Bequemlichkeit und Sicherheit. Ein Reisehandbuch für jedermann (4th edn, Berlin, 1811), 140: ‘In the old Empire, the tariff for tips for the postilions on the postal coaches is six kreutzers before each single station.’ Accordingly, it was travellers on the postal coaches who were 72 wolfgang burgdorf

This means that postal communications were hampered in 1806–7 by contemporary structural problems. Obviously, no reflections on the recent end of the Empire were made in letters that were not written—and this, in addition to the frequent omission of this topic in contemporary correspondence out of fear of indiscretion and of personal consequences, is one of the reasons for the view of a later generation of historians that the end of the Empire was a quiet affair. Scholars have, however, pointed out that the period from 1806 to 1813 was in fact full of expressions of the conviction that the Empire would be re-established; but for the reasons set out above, these affirmations were usually made in private conversations, less frequently in the exchange of letters.70 Although many contemporaries did in fact use a very clear language, there were indisputable restrictions on what could be said in 1806 and the following years, and this led to a surprising silence. Territorial blockades and the new war soon put an end to lamentations about the end of the Empire; contemporaries used the term ‘blockade’ (Landsperre) for the interruption of postal services by the deployments of the hostile armies and by the war itself.71 The horses were requisitioned for military needs. Prussian mobilization began on 6 August 1806, the very day on which the emperor abdicated the crown. In some parts of Germany, the territorial blockades lasted up to a year, and they led to a scantiness of sources from the private sphere. In the letters which were written, lamentations about the end of the Empire were pushed aside by the horrors of the new war. This war was followed by other wars and by all the difficulties of daily life in a highly militarized society. The disinclination to communicate one’s personal views affected not only letters and conversations, but also publications of every kind. For example, we read in 1826 about a report of a deportation to France in 1807–8 that it was impossible to write the history of this deportation immediately after the event: ‘Much would have had to remain unsaid. the first to experience the ‘old Empire’ after the end of the Empire. In modern German, the adjective is written with a capital letter. The first author to do so was probably Willy Andreas: ‘The Old Empire [Das Alte Reich] was dissolved, the Austrian emperor laid aside the crown of the Sacrum Imperium’: Willy Andreas, ‘Johann Philipp Palm. Zur einhun- dertfünfzigsten Wiederkehr seines Todestages 26. August 1956’, Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte, 21 (1958), 18–68, at 21. 70 John G. Gagliardo, Reich and Nation. The Holy Roman Empire as Idea and Reality, 1763–1806 (Bloomington, 1980), 288. 71 On the territorial blockades, a phenomenon which still awaits investigation, cf. Burg- dorf, Weltbild, 159–65. ‘once we were trojans!’ 73

For the word was fettered and no longer free, unlike thought—which was free because it cannot be fettered.’72 Paradoxically, however, it seems that precisely this sense of the need to communicate often led to attempts to write down what had happened, even if this often got no further than the locus communis that no adequate words were available, and sometimes took the form of the sapienti sat. But when people spoke of the limitations on what could be said and written, there was an echo of that which could not be mentioned—and often, words were in fact found. Many authors alluded to the fate of Palm as proof of the necessity for self-censorship even in the letters they wrote. Those who seemed best suited to comment on the end of the Empire, viz. the professors of imperial constitutional law, had other concerns: when the Reich ceased to exist, their academic discipline and the source of their livelihood likewise vanished. A contemporary declaration from Wetzlar illustrates the shock felt by the professors of German state law: The great importance of the dissolution of the imperial constitution which was valid until now, and the deep impression that this made upon us Ger- mans, are revealed by the simple fact of the profound silence on the part of the German writers. As soon as some less important event—although what can in truth be compared to this event?—or let me say: some trifling event became known, this gave the signal for dozens of essays by the historians and constitutional lawyers. The slightest alteration in the trials before the Chamber, a small change in the college of electoral princes, an insignifi- cant incident in the drawing up of a presentation before the supreme court, or even a dark letter on the border of the imperial mantle—all this seized the attention of the German journalists and gave them something to write about. Now Germany’s imperial constitution has been abrogated, there is no longer any supreme court, no college of electoral princes, no imperial parliament, no Imperial Aulic Council, no German imperial mantle, and Germany’s journalists have not yet used their pens to speak about this extraordinary event!73 This is how Joseph Anton von Vahlkampf, protonotary to the Imperial Chamber Court, described the atypical silence of journalists in the Empire at the end of 1806. It was impossible not to notice the silence of the

72 August Hermann Niemeyer, Beobachtungen auf einer Deportationsreise nach Frank- reich. Nebst Erinnerungen an denkwürdige Lebenserfahrungen und Zeitgenossen in den letzten fünfzig Jahren (2 vols, Halle, 1824–6, 2nd sect., p. x. 73 Joseph Anton von Vahlkampf (ed.), Politische und historische Ansichten bei Verän- derung der bisherigen Deutschen Reichsverfassung (Wetzlar, 1806), Preface, p. 3. 74 wolfgang burgdorf

German constitutional lawyers. Vahlkampf had an explanation for this sudden silence: This contradiction of what went before can be explained only in psychologi- cal terms. The fact is so new, so unexpected, so highly important, so comprehensive; it shatters things that had existed for a thousand years. And so the spirit cannot yet grasp it all. The spirit can grasp the question: ‘How is the present situation?’ even less than the other question: ‘How will things be in the future? What will our constitution be now?’ When the spirit seeks points of reference and elements that it might use to answer these questions, the only sure points it finds are opinions: ‘What were things like for your ancestors? How were things for you?’ Opinions and an incomplete comparison between the objects of reminiscence and their future surrogates—that is all that the spirit can do today. This silence of which Vahlkampf writes in the face of the overwhelming event, of the loss of orientation, and of the loss of identity, affected not only the German constitutional lawyers who had lost their academic discipline, but large sectors of the nation as a whole. When calm finally returned after the Congress of Vienna, the rapid succession of events which had turned the world upside-down now made the end of the Empire seem remote. Besides this, the events of August 1806 were still largely taboo in the first decades of the German Confedera- tion, since German princes who were still on the throne had taken part in them. This was a very serious matter, because the transformations of 1806 involved not only the largest shifts in territorial possessions since 1648, but also the most dramatic political restructuring between 1648 and 1945. The history of the epoch around 1806 and the preceding period—which could be seen by hindsight to have begun with the confessional divisions in the sixteenth century—was the story of the end of the Empire, and there was little incentive to dwell on this. Those who yearned for a greater national unity found their orientation in the allegedly powerful and unified medieval Reich of the Staufer dynasty. The successor states of the Empire similarly avoided the minefield of contemporary history. They did not emphasize their accession to a higher dignity and their territorial increases in the years around 1806, but pointed all the time to their medieval roots. They were artificial products looking desperately for historical legitimacy. The result was a collective flight of the Germans into the Mid- dle Ages—a tendency found equally in the authorities of the individual states and in the national opposition. ‘once we were trojans!’ 75

This flight into the Middle Ages left its mark on wide sectors of the social and cultural life of Germany between 1815 and 1848. It can be seen in the foundation of the Historical School of Law,74 in the new academic discipline of ‘German studies’,75 in the building up of art collections,76 in the historical societies which were founded en masse in the German- speaking territories after the Congress of Vienna,77 and in the art of Romanticism.78 All these movements had a strong orientation to the Mid- dle Ages. They sought to uncover the true old German law, the ancient texts and the innermost laws of the German language, etc. All these phenomena involved the search for a lost order; but it was not acceptable to link this to that order which had existed until 1803 or 1806, since contemporary history was taboo. The collective flight of the Germans into the Middle Ages led to the suppression of the whole of German history in the early modern period, and this allowed Prussian historiography to place every epoch from the end of the fifteenth century to their own age under the heading of ‘Prus- sia’s mission in German history’. After Prussia had incorporated large parts of Germany into its own territory in 1803, 1815, 1866, and 1871, it also incorporated German history into itself, and it was in this context that the cliché of the ‘silent end’ of the Empire arose in the mid-nineteenth century. A number of accounts of the reactions of ‘the public’, i.e. of the people, indicate on the contrary that the profound shock felt by the res publica litteraria in 1806 was representative of a large number of Germans. The letters written from August 1806 onward expose the deep strata of the collective mentality of the Germans once they realized that the Empire was lost. As the numerous letters quoted here attest, the end of the Reich was a traumatic experience for many Germans. Their immediate reactions to this event display a profound shock, incomprehension, and disorientation. When the events of August became known—and especially the participation of German princes and politicians in the dissolution of the Empire—this strengthened German self-contempt to an unparalleled

74 Burgdorf, Weltbild, 321–6. 75 Ibid., 331–5. 76 Ibid., 326–31. 77 Ibid., 290–318. 78 Ibid., 318–21. 76 wolfgang burgdorf extent,79 and that feeling was long to remain part of the collective mentality of the Germans, alongside a hypertrophy of nationalism. The German share in responsibility for the loss of the Empire and the active participation of almost all the surviving states made contemporary history taboo and prompted the collective flight into the Middle Ages. This in turn led to a deformation of the national consciousness. The national consciousness which had certainly existed until the end of the Empire, with pride in the Reich and its institutions, was replaced by an irrational hatred of the French: Francophobia became the most important surrogate for national pride in Germany. Until the end of the Rhine Confederation in 1813–14, despite some individual actions of resistance, there was a widespread col- laboration in Germany with the French. After Napoleon’s defeat, resistance to the French increased day by day. The yearning for the medieval empire and Francophobia became the primary forms of expression of the national consciousness of the Germans in the nineteenth century. The French were blamed for the national catastrophe—instead of the German governments which had also been involved. It was only in the context of the events of 1848 that Prussian journalists increasingly began to defame the South German states as traitors to the Empire. This made it impossible for the majority of Germans to accept the democratic and societal gains of the French Revolution. With the death of the last of the generation of 1806, every positive reminiscence of the Empire of the early modern period disappeared. The more the catastrophe of the Reich sank into oblivion, the stronger became the German consciousness that history had treated them badly—and that they had a right to compensation.80

79 For example, Seume to Gerhard von Kügelgen, Leipzig, ca. mid-Feb. 1807, in Drews and Sangmeister, Seume, Briefe, 538–9. 80 Burgdorf, Weltbild, 340. Section two

Habsburg Governance

Inside the Empire and for the House of Austria: The Buquoy Family from the Spanish Low Countries to Bohemia

Olivier Chaline

The finest hour of the long family history of the Longueval, who became comtes de Buquoy in 1580, was without doubt the Bohemian campaign of 1618–21. Charles Bonaventure de Longueval, comte de Buquoy, took command of the imperial army partly composed of Walloon troops which came like him from the Spanish Low Countries. Together with the duke of Bavaria and a fellow countryman he rather disliked, the comte de Tilly, who was in Bavarian service, he won the decisive battle of the White Mountain near Prague. But he was killed in action at age 50 in Upper Hungary in 1621 and his memory fell into oblivion compared with the rising new imperial star of the war, Wallenstein.1 Nevertheless it is worth taking a look at the family story of this ‘military enterpriser’ (as one of the type identified by F. Redlich).2 It is also for me the obvious consequence of my previous work about the White Mountain. I shall set out here some initial findings of my research in progress, explaining how the family’s history developed in two very specific parts of the Holy Roman Empire: the

1 Buquoy’s only biography is by Baron Karl von Weyhe-Eimke, Karl Bonaventura Graf von Buquoy, Retter der habsburgisch-österreichischen Monarchie (Vienna, 1876). ‘Longueval’, Biographie nationale de Belgique, vol. 12 (Brussels, 1893), cols 359–68; Baron Muuls, ‘Les Longueval, comtes de Buquoy, au service des Habsbourg dans les Pays-Bas catholiques’, Revue belge d’histoire militaire, 16 (1965–6), 273–95. The oldest study is Charles Rahlenbeck, Les Belges en Bohême, ou campagnes et négociations du comte de Bucquoy (Brussels, 1850). The dissertation of the Austrian colonel F. Ossmann, ‘Buquoy’ (Vienna, Kriegsarchiv, MSS, Allgemeine Reihe, Sign. 22 h), remained unpublished. On the battle of the White Moun- tain: O. Chaline, La bataille de la Montagne Blanche (8 novembre 1620). Un mystique chez les guerriers (Paris, 2000). Now I am engaged in a new study of the Spanish and imperial general. 2 F. Redlich, The German Military Enterpriser and his Work Force (2 vols, Wiesbaden, 1964). 80 olivier chaline

Spanish Low Countries and the kingdom of Bohemia, in the service of the two branches of the Casa de Austria.3 * It was hardly predictable that a French medieval noble family from Artois and Picardy should have turned into a nursery of loyal servants of the house of Austria in only a few generations and without exile or treachery. The main reason was the end of the French royal suzerainty over the county of Artois, brought about by the two treaties of Madrid (1526) and Cambrai (1529) after the French defeat of Pavia in 1525. This area, which was part of the medieval French crown’s fiefs, had been first conceded to the Valois Burgundian dukes. But it belonged again to the kingdom after the death of the last of them, Charles the Bold (1477), when Louis XI seized that region which turned to be a bone of contention between the French king and Maximilian of Habsburg, the husband of the last duke’s daughter, Mary of Burgundy. Nevertheless King Charles VIII, preparing his Italian campaign in 1493, gave back Artois to Maximilian. It was consequently inherited by Emperor Charles V who, by the 1548 accord of Augsburg, reorganized the Burgundian circle, an autonomous and outlying subdivision of the Empire, including Artois as well as the whole Habsburg Low Countries and the Franche Comté. Since the rule of Maximilian, Artois had turned into a very hotly contested region, with a Franco-Habsburg border that was less than eighty miles north of Paris. The struggle for control of this region only ended in 1659 when, at the peace of the Pyrenees, Artois was definitively lost to the house of Austria. For the Longueval, their origin in that western borderland of the Holy Roman Empire was highly significant. The family, from old nobility which was said to have taken part in the First Crusade, had lived in Artois and Picardy. They were attested since 1140 and their genealogy dated back without interruption to the fifteenth century. Some of them fought in the

3 The main study of it is by Gräfin Margarete Longueval-Buquoy, ‘Die Grafen von Buquoy—Aspekte ihrer Herrschaft’, in Deutsche Kulturlandschaft an Moldau und Matsch. Der südböhmische Heimatkreis Kaplitz-Hohenfurth-Gratzen, ed. A. Harasko, vol. 1 (Munich, 1986), 45–70. More recently a little family monograph for Czech readers has been published: P. Koblasa, Buquoyové. Stručné dějiny rodu (České Budějovice, 2002) and there is a concise survey of existing information in M.-E. Ducreux, ‘Les Buquoy dans l’histoire de la Bohême, 1621–1848’, in Le palais Buquoy, ambassade de France à Prague (Paris, 2005), 67–112 (bilingual French and Czech text). It is still useful to read the historical introduction to the family’s archives in Třebon castle: Státní archiv v Třeboni. Průvodce po archivních fondech (Prague, 1959), 81–127. inside the empire and for the house of austria 81

Crusades and according to the family tradition gained from these their coat of arms. The memory of the Crusades was still alive in the nineteenth century, when a remote descendant decorated a part of his south Bohe- mian castle of Rožmberk as a crusaders’ hall. The Longueval also took part in other military campaigns, not often successfully, the worst of all being Agincourt, where the head of the family fell, like many other vassals of the French king. The Picardy branch later disappeared and only the other, Artois, branch survived, loyal to the count, the Burgundian duke and later the Habsburg ruler. Adrien de Longueval was one of Charles V’s chamberlains. When the Low Countries revolt broke out the Longueval stood firm in their loyalty to the dynasty and Catholicism. Artois as a whole remained a pro-Habsburg county and it was precisely at Arras in 1579 that the union between the Catholic provinces to support Philip II was concluded. Max- imilien de Longueval (whose Christian name was not chosen by accident), soon governor of Arras, was appointed head of the Low Countries Conseil des Finances and made comte de Buquoy in 1580. But he was killed when the army of Alessandro Farnese besieged Tournai in 1581, leaving a widow and four orphans: two daughters and two sons, Charles Bonaventure, born ten years before, and Philip. Once again, the choice of Christian names was highly significant. Both orphans were protected first by Farnese and henceforth their life merged with the army of Flanders. At that time of Spanish reconquest of the southern and eastern parts of the Low Countries, the family’s horizons still remained Burgundian. Their suzerain was, as ever, the Spanish king as count of Artois. The estates were located between Arras and Bapaume, near the French border: Longueval, Vaulx and Buquoy (bought in 1569). Only a few traces still exist today. That ill-fated region became very famous in Britain as in the whole Com- monwealth ninety years ago when many of the former Buquoy estates were destroyed during the battle of the Somme. Longueval stood very near the place of the South African memorial of Delville Wood. Already by the end of the sixteenth century, the Low Countries war had driven the young Buquoy generation well beyond their familiar horizons, thanks to the protection of Farnese and the cosmopolitan military world of the army of Flanders. But the decisive step for Charles Bonaventure came with the Archdukes’ arrival in Brussels in 1598. From this time, when Albert, younger brother of Rudolf II, and the Infanta Isabella ruled the faithful provinces, the Spanish Low Countries played a more important role in the Holy Roman Empire as a whole. * 82 olivier chaline

How did the orphan of Tournai became general of the imperial army and a few years later the effective saviour of the Austrian dynasty? He enjoyed the powerful protection of the two prominent generals leading the army of Flanders: Alessandro Farnese and later Ambrogio Spinola. After perhaps a few years at the Spanish court, he himself served in the Walloon troops, first during the siege of Amiens and in the defense of Arras against the French. Buquoy became betrothed to the daughter of a French Catho- lic Leaguer in exile in the Spanish Low Countries. But his fiancée died 1596 before the wedding. After the peace of Vervins in 1598, he fought against the northern rebels and won fame at the bloody battle of Nieuport. In the course of these engagements, this very audacious captain was injured several times. Artillery command became his speciality and made him very valued by Spinola and the Archdukes during the siege of Ostende (where his brother fell) and other operations later against Dutch-held places on the Rhine. But Buquoy’s later unexpected military career in the Austrian monarchy would have been impossible without the court of Brussels and the wide political autonomy enjoyed by the Infanta, sister of the Spanish king, and the Archduke, brother of two emperors, Rudolf and later Matthias.4 Especially after the twelve years truce of 1609, the Archdukes, without complete political sovereignty, aspired to a wider international position, with a papal nuncio in Brussels (as there was in Cologne and Graz) and various diplomatic representatives serving on their behalf. To sustain their claims to a real capital in the northern part of the Spanish monarchy and the Burgundian circle, they maintained a court from 1598 at least until the death of Albert in 1621, the same year as Buquoy. Such a political crossroads was decisive for Charles Bonaventure for two reasons. First, his wedding in 1606 with Maria-Maddalena de Biglia, of Milanese origin, daughter of a maestro di campo in the service of the Spanish king as duke of Milan, and lady in attendance upon the Infanta.5 For the first time a Longueval married into a family outside the Low Countries, but still in the Holy Roman Empire, in Reichsitalien. Maria- Maddalena was said to have a family link with the famous archbishop Carlo Borromeo, and her mother was a Visconti. She soon had an uncle in Brussels. Such a wedding gave the Buquoy a completely new Italian

4 There will be more about them in the forthcoming biography of Albert by Luc Duerloo. 5 D. Lanoye, ‘Structure and Composition of the Household of the Archdukes’, in Albert and Isabella, 1598–1621. Essays, ed. W. Thomas and L. Duerloo (Brussels, 1998), 107–19. inside the empire and for the house of austria 83 dimension, with a connection to a territory that was both Spanish and imperial. It suggests a possible Italian connection in Brussels: Spinola, the Biglia family and also the papal nuncio who seems to have protected the young general of artillery. Genoa, Milan, Brussels: the connection symbolizes the Spanish road, linking northern Italy and Flanders. It was clear that Charles Bonaventure was considered an up-and-coming man by powerful figures at the court of the Archdukes. Secondly, already in 1613 Emperor Matthias proposed for the first time that the Walloon general should enter in his service as maestre di campo general to command his armies against the Turks who had invaded Tran- sylvania.6 Nothing happened that year, but all was prepared in Brussels for Buquoy’s departure and the Spanish king Philip III himself gave his consent to it. Under these conditions, it is not surprising that the following year Albert sent Buquoy to his brother the emperor, attending the diet of Linz.7 Following this, Mathias proposed once again that Buquoy should stay in his service, as the French King Henry IV seems to have done five years before. The artillery general declined the offer, but the emperor nonetheless appointed him general of the imperial army and in 1615 Albert allowed him to draw his pay as both a Spanish and imperial general.8 One year later, Buquoy was sent to Madrid by the archduke to explain to the Spanish king what Albert contemplated doing against the Dutch in the Jülich affair.9 At that time, the imperial military appointment may have been perhaps something more virtual than real, an honour rather than a practical command. Another general from the Low Countries who would become famous in the Empire, Count Tilly, served in the Turkish wars and received offers of command from Rudolf II, when the emperor was in active conflict with Matthias. But Tilly preferred to enter Bavarian service. It is a point worth noting that on the eve of the Thirty Years War, a lot of Walloons and other French-speaking officers had sought their fortune in the imperial army.10

6 H. Lonchay and J. Cuvelier (ed.), Correspondance de la Cour d’Espagne sur les affaires des Pays-Bas. Vol.1: 1598–1621 (Brussels, 1923), nos. 403, 409, Philip III to Spinola, 1 Apr. 1613, 14 Sept. 1613, 410, Spinola to Philip III, 2 Oct. 1613. 7 A. Gindely, Geschichte des Dreissigjährigen Krieges, (Prague, 1864), i. V.-L. Tapié, La politique étrangère française et le début de la guerre de Trente ans, 1616–21 (Paris, 1934). 8 Lonchay and Cuvelier (ed.), Correspondance, nos 431, Albert to Philip III, 19 Sept. 1614), 445, Albert to Philip III, 30 Mar. 1615. 9 Ibid., no. 474, Philip III to Albert, 22 June 1616. 10 P. Sahin-Tóth’s study, La France et les Français face à la ‘longue guerre de Hongrie’, 1591–1606 (Tours, 1997), includes many Walloons too. Cf. T. Oborni (ed.), Ad Astra. Sahin- Tóth Péter tanulmányai (Budapest, 2006). 84 olivier chaline

These years from Rudolf’s Turkish war to the Defenestration were very important: we already encounter in imperial service many of the future generals of the Thirty Years War. When the Bohemian rebellion broke out, it was therefore possible for Albert and Philip III to send Buquoy as an imperial general to help Matthias and Ferdinand. Just a few months earlier he was called to the Archdukes’ Council. To raise troops in the Spanish Low Countries to fight in Austria and Bohemia remained a military matter inside the circles of the Holy Roman Empire. It did not signify Spanish direct intervention with the tercios which might have provoked a general war three years before the end of the Twelve Years Truce.11 The Austrian Habsburgs needed an experienced general able to command a still modest military force which could be enlarged as need required. It would also bring into service a general who was well aware of the international dimensions of these unfolding frightful events. Buquoy was the right man in the right place. His careful campaigns were followed with interest not only in Vienna and Brussels, but also in Rome and Paris.12 I need to discover the extent of his own financial commitment. How much money did he borrow for his army thanks to his Low Countries estates? How did he transfer it to Bohemia?13 Buquoy became the head of the Imperial army, especially after the death of the comte de Dampierre, a Frenchman in the service of the emperor.14 With his fellow countrymen, he won the first imperial victory of the war, at Zablat in 1619, charging at the head of the cavalry.15 In 1620,

11 See P. Brightwell, ‘The Spanish Origins of the Thirty Years War’, European Studies Review, 9 (1979), 409–31; id. and G. Parker, ‘Spain and Bohemia: The Decision to Inter- vene, 1619’, ibid. 12 (1982), 117–41; P. Brightwell, ‘Spain, Bohemia and Europe, 1619–21’, ibid. 371–99. 12 The letters of the papal nuncio in Brussels are a very useful source of information about the military preparation: Archivio di Stato Vaticano, Borghese II, 105, 109, 112 and 403. See L. Van Meerbeck, Correspondance des nonces Gesualdo, Morra, Sanseverino avec la secrétairerie pontificale, 1615–21 (Brussels/Rome, 1937). 13 See T. Winkelbauer, ‘“Nervus belli bohemici”. Die finanziellen Hintergründe des Scheiterns des Ständeaufstands der Jahre 1618 bis 1620’, Folia Historica Bohemica, 18 (1997), 173–223, esp. 179–84, 194–5. 14 P. Broucek, ‘Feldmarschall Bucquoy als Armeekommandant, 1618–20’, in Der Dreis- sigjährige Krieg. Beiträge zu seiner Geschichte, ed. Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Wien (Vienna, 1976), 25–57; id., Kampf um Herrschaft und Landeshoheit im Osten Österreichs 1618 bis 1621 (Vienna, 1992). 15 On Buquoy’s Bohemian campaigns, see Zd. Kalista, ‘Buquoyův itinerář z konce českého tažení’, Vojensko- historický Sborník, 5 (1936), i.100–58, ii. 5–106; M. Volf, ‘Bitva u Velkého Zablatí a její nasledky’, Jihočeský Sborník Historický, 31 (1962), 123–34; J. Kočí et al. (ed.), Documenta Bohemica bellum tricennale illustrantia. Vol. II: Der Beginn des Dreis- sigjährigen Krieges. Der Kampf um Böhmen, 1618–21, ed. M. Toegel (Prague, 1972). inside the empire and for the house of austria 85 when the decision for explicit Spanish intervention was taken in Madrid, he had the command of a larger army which also contained German soldiers and Italian troops from Naples and Tuscany. Buquoy knew full well that his army was very precious, that its core was made up of experienced, veteran soldiers who would be very difficult to replace in the case of defeat. A major reverse in Bohemia could be disastrous for Emperor Ferdinand, battling to reassert his authority against the Bohemian estates, the Palatine elector and an army that was a large but unpaid coalition of Bohemian troops and Protestant volunteers. For that reason, the general was very reluctant to fight at the White Mountain. His preferred strategy was to wait a few days, anticipating that the general financial collapse of his adversary would lead to the disintegration of the coalition army and a Protestant military fury in Prague. After being persuaded by the duke of Bavaria to attack, he took part himself, despite being wounded, in the victory which sealed his fame. Except for a few strongholds—like Tábor, held by an English garrison—the victory of the White Mountain meant that the fight was over in Bohemia. But the war continued elsewhere, especially in Upper Hungary against Hungarian rebels and Transylvanian troops. In rather confused circumstances, Buquoy was killed in action at the siege of Neuhäusel, on 10 July 1621.16 Like his father forty years before, he left a widow and an orphan. But he left also estates in south Bohemia on the Austrian border. As early as February 1620, long before the victory at the White Mountain, Ferdi- nand had given Buquoy a lot of the confiscated estates he had taken the previous year with his Walloon troops: Gratzen (Nové Hrady), Libieschitz (Libějovice), Rosenberg (Rožmberk).17 The general was dead, but could these estates be of significance for his family’s future? * For a long time, it was a Czech historiographical commonplace that an ill-fated Bohemia was invaded and subdued after the White Mountain by rapacious foreign military enterprisers in the service of the victorious Habsburgs, who paid them with confiscated Bohemian Protestant estates. The Buquoy seemed to offer us the best example of it. Nevertheless, as

16 C. Malingre, Histoire générale de la rébellion de Bohême contenant la vie et exploicts de guerre du comte de Buquoy, général des armées impériales, jusques au jour de sa mort déplorable . . . (Paris, 1623), esp. 797–800. 17 A. Teichl, Geschichte der Stadt Gratzen (Gratzen, 1888); Geschichte der Herrschaft Gratzen (Gratzen, 1899); Beiträge zur Geschichte der Stadt Gratzen (Gratzen, 1907). 86 olivier chaline

Robert Evans had pointed out, this traditional interpretation ignored the fact that many well-connected Czech Catholic aristocrats had received a significant part of the land reallocation and that only a few foreign foreign military families settled in Bohemia.18 The Buquoy were one of them, but they had not foreseen gaining such remote estates in Bohemia. They remained in south Bohemia until 1945, being expelled only then as Ger- mans and heirs of the victorious general of the White Mountain. Nowadays Tomáš Knoz’s study is set to change the traditional interpretation of imperial seizures after the battle of the White Mountain.19 And so far as the Buquoy are concerned, it is more useful to investigate the family’s acquisition of new properties than to estimate the significance of these seizures for the Czech nation as a whole. The main problem in this particular case is to understand how new landlords settled in Bohemia and how their horizons changed when they obtained unforeseen estates in that foreign kingdom. Charles Bonaventure received estates located in a southern area he had conquered less than a year before when his Wal- loons seized town and castle of Gratzen (Nové Hrady) in July 1619. But the war went on, without allowing him to take interest in his new (and often ruined) properties. Bohemia did not belong at all to Buquoy’s familial horizon. These new estates given by Ferdinand II were like a payment in kind and an incentive to long service. But such a donation was more a curse than a blessing. It could be lost in case of defeat. Before 1620, Buquoy did not foresee that he would receive such remote estates. How could he rebuild the town and villages? How could his family manage estates now in very poor condition in a quite unknown country, except through himself? The historiography of the 1620s has not stressed enough the obvious difficulties of establishing new seigniorial administration, especially in the case of a remote area and an absentee landlord. Gratzen is a long way from Brussels and Arras. Thus at the time of Buquoy’s unexpected death in 1621, his newly gained Bohemian estates were far from secure for his family. His widow and his only son were living in Brussels.20 They had sent the Van Straten brothers to Bohemia to

18 R.J.W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550–1700. An Interpretation (Oxford, 1979), 200–4. 19 T. Knoz, Pobělohorské konfiskace. Moravský průběh, středoevropské souvislosti, obecné aspekty (Brno, 2006), 663–4. 20 Nicolas de Vernulz, Laus posthuma Buquoii, supremis caesareae majestatis exercitus praefecti a quinque militibus wallone belga, italo, germano, hispano, cosacco polono cele- brata stylo Nicolai Vernulaei pub. Eloquentiae professoris Lovanii (Cologne, 1623), no pagin. On the frontispiece, a small engraving represents Charles-Bonaventure on horseback wear- inside the empire and for the house of austria 87 act as stewards. But these men, working without real control, proved to be dishonest and their lack of concern for re-Catholicization brought trouble for the countess with the archbishop in Prague. The heirs of the Švamberk family, the family deprived of the estates, also tried to get them back. In March 1623, the emperor had confirmed that their possession lay with the Buquoy, but a long legal process had now started and the suit was not over before the end of the century. It became necessary for the widowed countess to go to Bohemia and to stay here. She left the Infanta’s Court at Brussels and went to an unknown country to save her son’s inheritance. It is possible to say that Maddalena reconquered the south Bohemian estates her husband had first conquered and received from Ferdinand II. In 1627 she obtained for her family the very important right of naturaliza- tion (Inkolat) in the Bohemian kingdom. The Buquoy could henceforth legally possess estates and sit at the diet. They were legally established in Bohemia. In Prague this meant the establishment of a house (not a palais) which stills exists in Celetná street. In the wider kingdom the Buquoy consolidated hold on their estates centred around the main town of Gratzen, with a rather small medieval castle (not to be compared with Český Krumlov). Maddalena died there, having build a new residence, on estates which had been reorganized and were now exclusively inhabited by Catholics. This was just as well for the wider family fortunes, for from 1640 and the fall of Arras, the original family estates in Artois were to be occupied by the French army. For a few generations, the family’s fortunes unfolded both in the Low Countries and in the Austrian monarchy. Charles Bonaventure’s only son, Charles Albert, married Marie-Guillemette de Croÿ and lived in the Spanish Netherlands as great bailiff of Hainaut. He served in the armies and garrisons of the Spanish king, but without the military successes of his father. From the end of the Franco-Spanish war in 1659, the family estates in Artois were henceforth in French territory, with the constant menace of being sequestrated in every war or even at moments of diplomatic tension.21 Louis XIV himself wrote about them in his Mémoires. But the Buquoy had other properties in the Spanish Low Countries and

ing the insignia of his command (baton and scarf): Strahov Library, Prague, AO XII 18, 6. O. Chaline, ‘La mort du comte de Buquoy, 1621’, in Vita morsque et librorum historia. Opera romanica, vol. 9, ed. J. Radimska (České Budějovice, 2006), 45–52. 21 Once again, it was a matter of seizure because the Buquoy continued to fight on the Spanish side and their now French estates were sequestrated, later to be given back to them but in poor condition. 88 olivier chaline this allowed them to climb towards the first rank of the nobility. By the time of the four surviving grandsons of Charles Bonaventure, the family had divided into two main branches. One brother, Charles Philippe, and four sisters remained at Brussels and married into the most aristocratic families of the Low Countries: Hornes, Mérode, Mailly, Argenteau and Tilly. Charles Philippe was even elevated to princely status in 1688 by Charles II, but that achievement was lost when Charles Philippe’s son died in 1703 without posterity. The other brothers had settled in Bohemia and belonged to the Herrenstand. Their members married into the aristocratic families of the Austrian monarchy: Ferdinand, the eldest, wed Maria Abensberg and Albert Charles was married first to Elisabeth Cavriani and later to Antonia Czernin. Ferdinand served in the imperial army and was wounded by the Turks at the battle of Saint Gotthard in 1664. When their father Charles Albert made out his will in 1663 he established an entail, with the main estates in France, Spanish Low Countries and Bohemia, which was accepted three years later by the emperor. This was Madd- alena’s posthumous victory. But she could not have predicted that Bohemia would turn into the single landed base for the descendants of the family. The extinction of the Low Countries branch persuaded the remaining branch in the Austrian Monarchy to sell these now remote estates. Some of them were too easily threatened by the French king. The others, still in the Spanish territories, were simply needed to get the family out of debt. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the Buquoy were solely Bohemian and Austrian aristocrats. Ferdinand served in the army, like his nephew Philippe Emmanuel, the second and last prince of Longueval. The Buquoy did not sit in the diet in Prague. But they set down roots in south Bohemia, and while they did not build an up-to-date castle for themselves, they supported the building of highly original baroque pilgrimage churches at the beginning of the eighteenth century.22 Above all, they restored the Renaissance church in Gratzen and in 1677 had founded a monastery of Servites there to watch over the grave of Maria-Maddalena.23 *

22 O. Chaline, ‘Les églises des Buquoy en Bohême du sud’, Histoire, Economie et Société, 26 (2007), iii.127–44. 23 Zd. Štrejn, ‘Přispěvek k historii kláštera servitů v Nových Hradech’, Jihočeský Sborník Historický, 12 (1993), 99–107. Nové Hrady. Kostel a klášter servitů (Velehrad, 1995). Charles Bonaventure rested in the Rožmberks’ church. inside the empire and for the house of austria 89

To conclude, it is worth emphasizing three major elements of the family history of the Buquoy. Firstly, this example reminds us of an all-too neglected part of the Holy Roman Empire: the Spanish territories at the two ends of the Spanish Road, Milan in Reichsitalien and the circle of Burgundy. Both were highly significant in European politics, especially in the first third of the seventeenth century. Secondly, Buquoy’s fate was inseparably connected to the house of Austria as a whole, at a time of newly-established Bruderunion im Haus Habsburg in place of the earlier Bruderzwist. With- out the two brothers Albert and Matthias and their nephew Ferdinand (in favour of whom Albert withdrew as possible emperor), the general would never have gone to Bohemia. With Buquoy’s military career, it is possible to link the Eighty Years and the Thirty Years wars. Thirdly, the Buquoy family was involved on two occasions in serious Bohemian events which threatened the maintenance of Habsburg power in the territory. The Buquoy served on the dynasty’s side at the beginning of the Thirty Years War. But in 1741, over a hundred years later, they served partly against the Habsburg dynasty, when like many other Bohemian aristocrats Franz Leopold joined the Bavarian elector against Maria The- resa.24 His rebellion, which was fortunately without tragic consequences for the family, served to demonstrate how well-integrated it had become in eighteenth-century Bohemia.

24 See E. Hassenpflug-Elzholz, Böhmen und die böhmischen Stände in der Zeit des beginnenden Zentralismus (Munich, 1982), 110–11.

The Habsburg Court in Vienna: Kaiserhof or Reichshof?

Jeroen Duindam

I. Introduction

Charles Patin, a French doctor and antiquary, opened his 1674 description of Vienna with an exuberant appraisal: Vienne est la capitale d’Allemagne, ou plûtot d’Occident, on y voit aujourd’huy la Majesté de l’Empire, comme autrefois à Rome1 Other travellers noticed the busy traffic of nobles around the emperor’s court, ranking it high among Europe’s courts, and indeed we find series of booklets describing all emperors from Roman to Habsburg times. Yet only rarely was Vienna presented as the ‘capital’ of Germany, and Patin’s description of the city as Europe’s leading metropolis stands as a singular exception.2 There was little ground for his assessment. Neither in population, nor in economic importance did early modern Vienna approach Paris or London. The political centrality of these cities in their realms,

1 Charles Patin, Relations historiques et curieuses de voyages, en Allemagne, Angleterre, Hollande, Boheme, Suisse, & c. (Lyon, 1674), 3, in line with the extremely laudatory description of Leopold I on pp. 225–6. See various old prints linking Roman emperors from Caesar to the reigning Habsburg emperor, e.g. Johann Georg Maynfisch, Ein kurtze und nützliche Chronica dero vier Monarchien von Erschaffung der Welt: sonderlich aber der vierdten und letzten, der Römer . . . von Cajo Julio Caesare biß auff . . . Rudolphum II (Frankfurt, 1598), or the same author’s Romanorum Imperatorum Vitae.. Das ist Denkwürdige [. . .] Beschreibung aller Römischen Kayser, von Cajo Julio Caesare an biss auff Ferdinandum III . . . (Amberg, 1657), and the anonymous Ordnung Aller Römischen Käyser Vom dem ersten Monarchen der vierdten Monarchy Julio Caesare Biß auff Leopoldum Jetziger Zeit Regierenden Römis- chen Käyser/ in deutsche Reimen verfasset : Wobey eine kurtze Erklärung und auff den Rand gezeichnete Jahrzahl/ zu welcher Zeit ein jeder zu regieren angefangen/ zufinden (s.l., 1666). 2 John Burbury, A Relation of a Journey of the Right Honourable My Lord Henry How- ard from London to Vienna, and thence to Constantinople . . . (London, 1671), 21 calls Vienna the ‘capital city of Austria, and the “residence of the Emperours of Germany”’, at 37 the ‘metropolis of inner Austria’; Edward Brown, An Account of Several Travels through a Great Part of Germany in Four Journeys . . . (London, 1677), 71, ‘chief city of Austria’ and ‘the old seat of the Dukes of Austria, and for a long time of the emperours of Germany’; Mémoires de Charles-Louis Baron de Pöllnitz contenant les observations qu’il a faites dans ses voyages, et le caractère des personnes qui composent les principales cours de l’Europe (2 vols, Amster- dam, 1734), i.287 on the nobles at court. 92 jeroen duindam moreover, was more conspicuous than Vienna’s role in the archetypically composite Habsburg monarchy, let alone in the Holy Roman Empire or in Europe as a whole. Vienna, however, indisputably had become the Kai- serstadt par excellence, and this was its defining characteristic for seventeenth- and eighteenth-century travellers. In 1530, following the failed first Ottoman siege, Ferdinand had moved his Hoflager to Vienna. From his accession to the imperial dignity in 1556–8 to the brief Wittelsbach interlude on the imperial throne in 1742–5, only Rudolf II’s prolonged stay in Prague had interrupted Vienna’s status as the main residence of the emperor. Kaiserstadt Vienna, however, did not necessarily serve as capital, and the Habsburg court in Vienna always had to reckon with alternative courtly centres. Ferdinand I’s division of his succession among his sons complicated the picture, strengthening the regional Habsburg capitals in Graz and Innsbruck each with its own court until 1619 and 1665 respectively.3 The royal crowns of Bohemia and Hun- gary, moreover, in the hands of the Habsburgs since 1526, retained their own rituals, regalia and centres notwithstanding either the 1620 defeat of the Bohemians or the long Ottoman presence in Hungary.4 At the level of the Holy Roman Empire, the status of Vienna and its court was even more complicated. Vienna, as the habitual residence of the emperor and as the increasingly prominent centre of one of the major dynastic complexes of the Empire, held an important position. Yet on the scale of the Empire it shared its position with a range of other urban and dynastic centres. Imperial free cities cherished their role in the living constitution of the Empire, safeguarding the imperial insignia, and serving as meeting points for the Reichsstände at recurring key events in the ceremonial-political calendar. The greater princes of the Empire, particularly the electors, had capitals, courts, and hunting lodges that matched the emperor’s relatively modest standards of magnificence. Each of these courts served as a focus of integration for its own immediate environment, and at the same time offered a starting point for the ongoing competition in the höfische Gesell- schaft of the Empire.5 The process of Territorialisierung, the strengthening

3 Innsbruck played a role later on as well: see the recent useful overview ed. Heinz Noflatscher and Jan Paul Niederkorn, Der Innsbrucker Hof. Residenz und höfische Gesell- schaft in Tirol vom 15. bis 19. Jahrhundert (Vienna, 2005). 4 See Kees Teszelszky, ‘De sacra corona regni hungariae. De kroon van Hongarije en de ontwikkeling van vroegmoderne nationale identiteit (1572–1665)’ (diss. Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 2006). 5 The expression comes from Volker Bauer, Die höfische Gesellschaft in Deutschland von der Mitte des 17. bis zum Ausgang des 18. Jahrhunderts. Versuch einer Typologie (Tübingen, 1993). the habsburg court in vienna 93 of state-structures on the basis of principalities rather than in the Empire as a whole, didn’t preclude the consolidation of a characteristically competitive, but still on the whole operative overarching ceremonial and political structure. The relative position of the emperor’s court within this structure of multiple courtly centres deserves closer consideration. We can look at this matter from many perspectives—all of them represented in this volume. In several older pioneering articles, Volker Press analysed the role of the Habsburg court in Vienna as a centre of government, looking at the connections of nobles from the Empire with the Viennese court, as well as at the political importance of the emperor and his advisers for imperial matters.6 Serving the emperor could offer an attractive road to dynastic power for noble families, from the Erblande as well as from the Empire. Recent monographs on the court in Prague and Vienna now provide more prosopographical detail about the Hofstaat, allowing us to elaborate some of Press’ arguments.7 Another field offering a rich harvest of new titles deals with the intensely legal political set-up of the Empire, highlighting the role of the Reichshofrat and the councils around the emperor as pivots of litigation and patronage—always, however, in competition with territorial courts and most notably the Reichskammergericht.8 The court was a centre of conspicuous display—though in seventeenth-century Vienna we can hardly speak of systematic ‘cultural policies’. Several studies have analysed the perception and reception of the Habsburg emperors in the Empire as a whole, in connection with the development of the Empire as a cohesive public sphere with its own postal systems, newspapers and reading public.9 In this imperial Kommunikationsraum and Gerichtslandschaft,

6 Volker Press, ‘The Habsburg Court as a Center of the Imperial Government’, Journal of Modern History, 58 supplement (1986) 23–45; id., ‘Josef I. (1705–11)—Kaiserpolitik zwischen Erblanden, Reich und Dynastie’ in Deutschland und Europa in der Neuzeit. Festschrift für Karl Otmar Freiherr von Aretin zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. R. Melville and C. Scharf (Stuttgart, 1988), i.277–97; id., ‘Österreichische Großmachtbildung und Reichsverfassung. Zur kaiser lichen Stellung nach 1648’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsfor schung 98 (1990), 131–54; id., ‘Kaiser und Reichsritterschaft’, in Adel in der Frühneuzeit. Ein regionaler Vergleich, ed. R. Endres (Cologne/Vienna, 1991), 163–94. 7 See the titles mentioned in n. 59 below. 8 See, e.g., the titles discussed in Chris Thornhill, ‘Review Article. The Holy Roman Empire and the Law’, German History, 24, (2006), 110–17, and Anja Amend et al. (ed.), Gerichtslandschaft Altes Reich. Höchste Gerichtsbarkeit und territoriale Rechtsprechung (Cologne, 2007) = Quellen und Forschungen zur höchsten Gerichtsbarkeit im Reich, Band 52; many relevant other titles in this series. 9 See Jutta Schumann, Die andere Sonne. Kaiserbild und Medienstrategien im Zeitalter Leopolds I. (Berlin, 2003); Maria Goloubeva, The Glorification of Emperor Leopold I. in Image, Spectacle and Text (Mainz, 2000); Rouven Pons: ‘Wo der gekrönte Löw hat seinen 94 jeroen duindam the emperor’s court enjoyed a prominent though rarely uncontested place. Furthermore, the Empire as a ceremonial landscape has recently received considerable attention, in which the traditional trouble-free opposition between political decision-making on the one hand, and ceremonial ‘trifles’ on the other, is carefully dismantled. The Empire may have been based on a constantly evolving written ‘constitution’; in practice it took shape in the interaction among the Reichsstände, in the imperial diet, during elections and coronations, and in other incidental meetings, such as acts of homage and investiture. The diet itself, as the meeting point and Verfassungsmitte of the Empire, was in many ways an offshoot of the late medieval curia.10 Having studied the institutional framework and daily practice at the courts of Vienna and Versailles, I propose to approach the status of the Viennese court in the Empire from the perspective of the court’s structures and practices. I will first offer some thoughts on the definition of the court in general—rightly labeled a ‘protean institution’ and an ‘elusive subject’ by Robert Evans.11 The early modern court was more flexible, mobile and adaptable than dominant images such as that of Versailles suggest. This leads me to a discussion of the multilayered structure of the ‘imperial’ court, as outlined in the Golden Bull, and as practised in the early modern age: with its range of offices, Erzämter, Erbämter, and the Hofämter,

Kayser-Sitz’. Herrschaftsrepräsentation am Wiener Kaiserhof zur Zeit Leopolds I. (Egelsbach, 2001). See also Behringer and Winkelbauer in this volume. 10 Gabriele Annas, Hoftag—Gemeiner Tag—Reichstag: Studien zur strukturellen Ent- wicklung deutscher Reichsversammlungen des späten Mittelalters,1349–1471 (2 vols, Göt- tingen, 2004). Several important contributions by Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger discuss the ceremonial-cultural dimensions of the Empire: e.g. ‘Zeremoniell als politisches Verfahren. Rangordnung und Rangstreit als Strukturmerkmale des frühneuzeitlichen Reichstags’, in Neue Studien zur frühneuzeitlichen Reichsgeschichte, ed. J. Kunisch (Berlin, 1997), 91–132; ‘Die zeremonielle Inszenierung des Reiches, oder: Was leistet der kulturalistische Ansatz für die Reichsverfassungsgeschichte, in Imperium Romanum—irregulare corpus— Teutscher Reichs-Staat. Das Alte Reich im Verständnis der Zeitgenossen und der Historiog- raphie, ed. M. Schnettger (Mainz, 2002), 233–46; ‘Verfassungsakt oder Fest? Die „solemnis curia“ der Goldenen Bulle und ihr Fortleben in der Frühen Neuzeit‘, in Die Kaisermacher. Frankfurt am Main und die Goldene Bulle, 1356–1806, ed. E. Brockhoff and M. Matthäus (2 vols, Frankfurt, 2006), ii.94–104; and the author kindly gave me a copy of her forthcoming ‘Verfassungsgeschichte als Geschichte symbolischen Handelns. Die Investitur mit den Reichslehen in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Kaiserhof und Reich, ed. G. Klingenstein. See also Michael Sikora, ‘Formen des Politischen. Der frühmoderne deutsche Reichstag in system theoretischer Perspektive’, in Geschichte und Systemtheorie. Exemplarische Fallstudien, ed. F. Becker (Frankfurt, 2004), 157–84. 11 Robert J.W. Evans, ‘The Court: A Protean Institution and an Elusive Subject’, in Princes, Patronage and the Nobility. The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age c. 1450– 1650, ed. R.G. Asch and A. Birke (Oxford/London, 1991), 481–91. the habsburg court in vienna 95 daily serving the emperor. The Reichserbämter, imperial hereditary posts, stuck between the two extremes, fought a valiant battle to preserve their position; I will give examples of the conflicts, which will help to elucidate the nature of the imperial court in relation to the Viennese court. Finally, I will come back to more general questions, related to the role of the Habsburg court in the Empire. My comparison with Versailles is relevant here because the marked differences in behaviour between the upper layers at the French and Habsburg courts that struck me during my research can partly be explained by the imperial dimensions of Viennese court life. The potential tension between high nobles and the ruler at court, defused in France by strong rulership in combination with a cascade of rewards for the grandees, remained of minor importance in Vienna. Tension and increasing distance between the emperor and the greater princes of the Empire went hand in hand with the integration of a loyal gesamthabs burgische Adel around the Viennese court.

II. The Court: Towards an Open Definition

Defining a subject as familiar as the royal court must appear to be a futile exercise, yet it is necessary to help us go beyond the common one- dimensional and rigid views of the court. The history of the court is dominated by powerful images and attractive interpretations. The Sun King in Versailles, haughtily presiding over an ongoing show in his honour, ranks high among these images. Norbert Elias’ interpretation of the court as a ‘gilded cage’, a luxurious prison for formerly powerful nobles lost in endless ceremonial squabbles, gave the image of Versailles a powerful analytical edge. In Elias’ terms, a sedentary court, located in one central palace, was populated largely by noble courtiers engaged in a salon-like but bitter competition, kept at a distance from the actual machinery of the state. A mixture of Ludovician imagery and Elias’ analysis long served as the yard- stick with which other courts were measured. Elements of this powerful mixture still linger in the literature, though in recent studies, the unifocal, static image of the court tends to be replaced by descriptions stressing the fluidity of the court in terms of locations, groups, and ‘functions’. It is a well-founded commonplace to point to the change from medieval itinerancy, Reisekönigtum, to the more sedentary rulership of the early modern age. The development of capitals and central palaces, either within or outside the capital, can indeed easily be charted. The court as an occasional meeting of the ruler with his grandees gradually developed into 96 jeroen duindam a semi-permanent grouping around the ruler: the Hoftag became Hofstaat. Mobility and changeability, however, remained characteristic for the early modern court. All courts I am familiar with frequently travelled—usually in the opening decade of a new reign to tour the realm; on an annual and seasonally determined basis from one palace and one hunting ground to another; and incidentally driven by warfare or contagious disease. Obvi- ously, not all rulers were equally keen on movement, and not all territories necessitated frequent progressions to reconfirm princely authority. Even French royalty at Versailles, however, usually seen as the epitome of immobility, roughly conformed to this picture—with frequent short trips to other palaces, a longer voyage de Fontainebleau in autumn, and incidental movement generated by political and military needs. Habsburg emperors were among the most mobile rulers, because of the accumulation of travels arising from the composite nature of their hereditary domains and the imperial dimension of their rule. All courts travelled, yet all courts in the course of the early modern age resided in one major palace at least during some months of the year, usually from late autumn to early spring. In that sense courts clearly did become sedentary. Mobility entailed major changes in court personnel. Hunting lodges could accommodate only a fraction of the staffs and services housed in or near the winter residence. Quartering, relevant for most courts deep into the seventeenth century even around the winter residences, could not create sufficient space in the less urbanized environment of hunting lodges.12 Only a select group would join the ruler in his peregrinations, other courtiers, servants, and administrators stayed behind. The Hofstaat, therefore, changed from season to season, reaching a peak in winter, the ceremonial and festive high season from Christmas to Holy Week. The relative diffi- culty of military activities in winter made it possible for soldiers to attend court in this phase. These changes in court staff are reflected in the list- ings of courtiers, and have complicated estimates of court numbers. This brings me to another point. Reading the literature of the 1980s and 1990s on the court, which took its cue from Castiglione and Elias, one could easily conclude that the court was mostly populated by nobles. Checking the court’s records, however, we find a substantial majority of lesser servants, running the three universal court services of the table, the chamber, and the stables. The last usually formed the most numerous

12 See John Spielman, The City and the Crown: Vienna and the Imperial Court, 1600–1740 (West Lafayette, 1993). the habsburg court in vienna 97 group at court. A minimum establishment of these lesser servants cater- ing for the daily needs of the ruler was always necessary, thus many of them were permanently present. Yet on top of this lowest layer, we find a sequence of other, higher-ranking groups, essentially organized along the same universal lines of table–chamber–stable, headed by the steward, chamberlain, and master of the stables respectively. Honorary office in these higher ranks was usually organized through part-time service, either in a full-blown system of job rotation on the basis of quarter, semester, or annual service, or in more haphazard ways. It is important to note that these officers belonged to the court in terms of status, but were not necessarily frequently present. Hence, as a rule, the majority of the court’s servants were neither noble nor very dignified. The non-noble majority of the Hofstaat, highly relevant not only for the day-to-day working of the court, but also for its economic impact and its connections with the urban-artisanal world now finally receives more scholarly attention.13 Under the heading ‘court’ we usually subsume a series of more or less separated components. There is the household proper, the main staffs with their varied honorary extensions as discussed in the preceding paragraphs. Yet in addition to the household of the ruler, we usually find secondary households within the dynasty providing a suitably dignified environment for spouses, brothers, sisters, children. Such households could have a complete staff, reflecting the staffs of the central household, or a reduced establishment based on personal servants and honorary officers in the chamber without their own staffs for kitchen and stables, or guards. These additional households, markedly present in court life from formal diplomatic encounters and religious ceremonies to daily meals, could also offer alternative entries into the court, and alternative loci of patronage. While in the course of the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these courts-within-the-court would rarely pose an open challenge to the ruler, they do complicate the unifocal image of the court. Among the most debated issues in the recent historiography of the court we find the changing balance between household and government, or court and council. Contemporaries referring to ‘the court’ could indicate either household or government and wouldn’t necessarily separate sharply

13 S.C. Pils and J.P. Niederkorn (ed.), Ein zweigeteilter Ort? Hof und Stadt in der frühen Neuzeit (Vienna, 2005); W. Paravicini and J. Wettlaufer (ed.), Der Hof und die Stadt. Kon- frontation, Koexistenz und Integration im Verhältnis von Hof und Stadt in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (Ostfildern, 2006); Herbert Haupt, Das Hof- und hofbefreite Handwerk im barocken Wien, 1620 bis 1770. Ein Handbuch (Innsbruck, 2007). 98 jeroen duindam between the two spheres. The rigid separation of household offices from political power, an indispensable building block in Elias’ argument, cannot be accepted as a general rule—not even in the heyday of Versailles. Even if we used a very limited and arguably anachronistic definition of ‘political’ as pertaining to high politics and decision-making only, it would not hold in general—though certainly court office, on the other hand, didn’t necessarily come with proximity to formal power. Allowing room for the relevance of recommendations and nominations, for the informal network of contacts, it makes no sense whatsoever to picture the court as an apolitical environment. As long as the ruler in person stood at the heart of the state, his companions and closest servants potentially held a key position. This was only marginally affected by the ongoing differentiation, specialization, and professionalization of services pertaining to the ruler as a person as well as to the government of his realm arising at most courts, most markedly in the spheres of finance and law. The major function of the court—seen from the perspective of the ruler—was the creation of a well-ordered environment for daily life as well as for government, which could be used as a staging ground for ceremonies and festivities sufficiently magnificent to impress fellow rulers or nearby rivals. The various honorific offices and titles reflecting membership of the court could help to attract nobles into the orbit of the court— not necessarily to ‘tame’ them, but to profit from their prestige and to use them as middlemen in regional government.14 Nobles, in their turn, could try to use the court to consolidate their dynastic power and status, by exerting some control over central patronage and by visibly taking their prestigious position in the great rituals. In this way, the court could indeed serve as a powerful mechanism of integration, potentially beneficial for the ruler as well as for elites. Yet there always was potential for conflict, mostly between the ruler and his near-equals: relatives and over- mighty subjects. The integration of these highest layers at court indicated the consolidation of monarchical rule; yet the presence of magnates who could turn into rivals was not always a pleasing prospect, nor were these magnates always willing to serve at court.

14 The nobles’ motivations to attend court are central in the intelligent study of Charles VI’s court by Andreas Pečar, Die Ökonomie der Ehre. Der höfische Adel am Kaiserhof Karls VI. (Darmstadt, 2003). the habsburg court in vienna 99

III. The Imperial Court: Erzämter and Erbämter

Courts have frequently been depicted as a series of concentric circles, with the ruler in the centre. The inner core of the court may have been less unequivocally unified institutionally, with several members of the dynasty having their own households, and with an increasing differentiation between household and government. The ruler as a person, however, undoubtedly occupied the central place. Around the person of the ruler, an inner circle of trusted servants and advisers held a more or less permanent position. This daily establishment or inner court offered the basis for a variety of honorific extensions in the form of special offices, titles and occasions. Such honorific structures could be multiplied allowing various components within a personal union their own offices and insignia. Many terms have been used to label the dual (or plural) nature of the court, and the division between an ‘inner’ permanent court and an occasional ‘outer’ court: aula and curia; curia and curia solemnis; curia minor and curia maior.15 While these terms are most frequently used to describe late medieval courts, they are indispensable to understand the development of the early modern court.16 Courts had become permanent institutions, but their form was still extremely variable, changing according to the seasonal rhythm of movement and the recurring ceremonial highpoints. Actual service, for instance at the ruler’s table, could be performed at many levels, the choice of staff depending on the occasion. Great feasts would demand the highest level of service; ordinary meals could proceed without much ado and with the regular servants, topped by the lowest echelons of honorary service. At the French court, the table service had a hierarchy of three offices labelled grand, premier, and ordinaire—reflected also in the hierarchy of other staffs. The highest office at court, held by the princes de Condé, was that of grand maître de l’hôtel (alternatively grand maître de France); his noble substitute, the premier maître de l’hôtel, was followed by a lesser-ranking proxy, the maître d’hôtel ordinaire. The maître d’hôtel ordinaire, finally, was assisted by 36 honorary gentilshom- mes servants and 48 maîtres d’hôtel serving in rotation. At great festivities

15 Bernd Ulrich Hegemöller, ‘Die “solempnis curia” als Element der Herrschaftsau- sübung in der Spätphase Karls IV., 1360 bis 1376’ in Deutscher Königshof, Hoftag und Reich- stag im Späteren Mittelalter, ed. P. Moraw (Stuttgart, 2002), 451–76, see defining criteria of the solempnis curia at 459. 16 This is the theme of Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, ‘Verfassungsakt oder Fest?’. 100 jeroen duindam the whole array of officers would be present, sometimes assisted by more princely honorary servants. Daily service at the Habsburg court could be performed by pages and chamberlains, or Hofdamen at the empress’ table. More ceremonial occasions would show a far more impressive accumulation of higher-ranking officers.17 In one important aspect practice at the Habsburg court diverged from contemporary French habits.18 Ceremonies related to specific parts in the Habsburg domains, such as Erbhuldigungen and coronations, would demand honorary service by hereditary offices connected to the region, and held by local grandees. Such Landeserbämter existed for each of the components in the Habsburg portfolio of territories—even where no actual daily court establishment existed.19 Thus, on top of the Hofstaat of permanently serving officers and servants, several other ‘courts’ could temporarily be revived fitting the nature of the occasion as well as its specific territorial affiliation. The imperial court formed the most dignified example of this tendency. It came into being in any meeting of the emperor with leading Reichsstände, most notably the electors: ‘der Kaiser im Kreis der Kurfürsten’. By definition such meetings were limited to festive and solemn occasions, notably including election and coronation and the imperial diets before 1663. Whenever the emperor explicitly acted in his quality as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, even without the presence of notable princes of the Empire, for example during the investiture of imperial fiefs in Vienna, he should ideally have been served by officers of the imperial court. The Empire had its own set of courtiers, consisting of a supreme layer of arch-offices or Erzämter and their noble substitutes, the Erbämter. The Erzämter of the Empire were an ‘auf das Land bezogene Reichsdignität’

17 See my Vienna and Versailles. The Courts of Europe’s Dynastic Rivals 1550–1780 (Cam- bridge 2003), 161–80: ‘From Intimacy to Display’. 18 Yet see Jean du Tillet, Recueil des Roys de France leurs couronne et maison, ensemble le rang des grands de France (Paris, 1611; 1st publ. 1577), 268–318, esp. 283, 285, 296 noting regional hereditary offices for Champagne, Bretagne, Berry, and Auvergne, that seem to have led an even more somnolent existence than their Habsburg parallels. 19 As an illustration of the persistence of these offices, see the overview of offices in 1848 and the literature sources by Georg Frölichsthal published online by the journal Adler— Zeitschrift für Genealogie und Heraldik at http://www.adler-wien.at/wDeutsch/publika- tionen/online/ landeserbaemter.shtml. See article ‘Erbämter’ for the ‘Erblandeshofämter’ in various territories of the Reich, mentioned in Meyers Konversationslexikon (Leipzig/ Vienna, 1885–92), v. 720. the habsburg court in vienna 101 held by the electors.20 The three spiritual electors of Mainz, Cologne and Trier all nominally held chancellorships, although in addition to their ceremonial tasks, only the Mainz Reichserzkanzler actually functioned in practice. The four worldly electors held the classic court offices familiar from Ottonian and Capetian examples. The king of Bohemia served as Schenk (pincerna, cupbearer), the count palatine of the Rhine as Truchseß (dapifer, seneschal, frequently translated as steward and panetier),21 the duke of Saxony was imperial Marschall (marshal), and the margrave of Brandenburg acted as Kämmerer (chamberlain). The Erzämter received their dignity from the emperor in person in an act of homage, a Thron belehnung. This practice gradually dissolved after the later sixteenth century, when the worldly electors sent their agents to Vienna to perform the rituals—and even that habit disappeared after 1748.22 The electors in turn served as liege lords for their substitute-officers, the Reichserbämter.23

20 See the careful sketch by Ernst Schubert, ‘Erz- und Erbämter am hoch- und spät- mittelalterlichen Königshof’, in Deutscher Königshof, Hoftag und Reichstag im Späteren Mittelalter, ed. P. Moraw (Stuttgart, 2002), 191–237, qu. at 215. See also Werner Rösener, ‘Hofämter an mittelalterlichen Fürstenhöfen’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mit- telalters, 45 (1989), 485–550; Johann Jacob Moser, Teutsches Staats-Recht; Theil 6 Darin- nen, nebst des Kaysers Rechten und Pflichten in Ansehung gewisser besonderere Classen. . . : Nebst einem Register über den Fünften und Sechsten Theil (Leipzig, 1742), 75–108, on the Erzämter; 108–57 on the Erbämter; Moser, Neues teutsches Staatsrecht. Vom Röm. Kayser, Röm. König, und denen Reichsvicarien (1767; Osnabrück, 1967), ii. 418–34, on the Erzämter; 434–86 on the Erbämter. On the Erbmarschall, see Hans Schwackenhofer, Die Reichserb- marschälle Grafen und Herren von und zu Pappenheim. Zur Geschichte eines Reichsminis- terialengeschlechtes (Berlin, 2002); an older variant of the same family-based history in Johann Alexander Döderlein, Matthaeus à Bappenheim enucleatus, emendatus, illustratus, & continuatus. Das ist: Historische Nachrichten von dem Ur-alten Hochpreißlichen Hauß Der kayserlichen und des Reichs Marschallen van Calatin Und der davon abstammenden ehe- und dermahligen Reichs-Erb-Marschallen Herren und Grafen zu Pappenheim. . . . (Schwa- bach, 1739). Alas, I have not been able to obtain in time for this publication a copy of Wilhelm Kraft, ‘Das Reichsmarschallamt in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung’, Jahrbuch des Historischen Vereins für Mittelfranken, 78 (1959), 1–36; 79 (1960–1), 38–96. 21 See Tillet’s discussion of the four offices, Recueil des Roys, ii.19; i.273–4; he explicitly compares the Capetian and Ottonian offices, likening the connétable to the Marschall, the Seneschal to the Truchseß. 22 More nuance and detail in Stollberg-Rilinger, ‘Verfassungsgeschichte als Geschichte symbolischen Handelns’, on Belehnungen. See also M. Schnettger (ed.), Päpstliches und kaiserliches Lehnswesen in der Frühen Neuzeit = Zeitenblicke 6 (2007), Nr. 1, [10.05.2007], URL: http://www.zeitenblicke.de/2007/1/editorial/index_html, URN: urn:nbn:de:0009-9-8190. 23 See the description of Friedrich III’s 1690 Belehnung by proxy of a Hohenzollern- Sigmaringen Erbkämmerer in Johann Christian Lünig, Das Teutsche Reichs-Archiv (13 vols, Leipzig, 1713–14), x.5–9; sections on the other Erbämter in the same volume at 388–9 on Semper-Freyen und Erbschenken zu Limburg; 348–52 Grafen und Erbtruchseßen von Waldburg, and a longer discussion of the Pappenheim Erbmarschall 179 ff. Other relevant 102 jeroen duindam

These hereditary offices were vested in a small group of families, of whom only the Pappenheim Marschall held office throughout the later Middle Ages and the entire early modern age. A Limpurg Schenk was already mentioned in the Golden Bull, but his family died out and was succeeded by the Althan family in 1714. Other offices had changed hands earlier. The Zollern-Hohenzollern family in 1505–8 obtained the dignity of Kämmerer from the Weinsberg chamberlains. The Waldburg family in the course of the sixteenth century took over the offices from Küchenmeister and Truchseß Seldeneck.24 The Thirty Years War disrupted this long-standing arrangement. In 1623 Bavaria was formally invested with the electoral dignity, in the process obtaining the arch-office taken away from the count palatine. After the peace of Westphalia, the latter regained his Kurwürde and an arch-office—yet he now became Erzschatzmeister instead of the original Erztruchseß, an office remaining in Bavarian hands.25 In 1653 the Sin- zendorf family obtained the newly instituted Erbschatzmeisteramt, connected to the count palatine’s new arch-office. In 1692 the ninth electorate again complicated matters. The newly created elector of Brunswick- Lüneburg received the Erzbanneramt, but Württemberg, traditionally holding the dignity of Reichsfähndrich, vehemently protested. An unending dialogue of learned proposals and recriminations ensued that would last until Brunswick-Lüneburg finally obtained the Erzschatzmeisteramt upon the unification of Bavaria and the Palatinate in 1777–8.26 Before that auspicious date, all propositions for alternative offices and rearrangements of offices had necessarily been dropped following serious complaints of office-holders who felt themselves to be disadvantaged by the introduction of the new office. Essentially, all conceivable offices either fell within

sections on the Erz- und Erbämter in Das Teutsche Reichs-Archiv, i. (paginated in four sections) 1.319–23 on the order of electors with the Reichsinsignien in Regensburg 1653; 2.246–8 on a 1708 imperial confirmation of a Reichs-Ober-Jägermeisteramt with attendant rights for the Erzmarschall-Elector of Saxony. Id., Grundfeste Europäischer Potenzen . . . (2 vols, Leipzig, 1716), ii.516–23 rights of the Erbmarschall. 24 See ‘Zollern’ in: A[llgemeine] D[eutsche] B[iographie] (56 vols, Leipzig, 1875–1912), xlv. 414, on Weinsberg and Zollern; Moser, Neues teutsches Staatsrecht, ii.450–2 for the changeover of Limpurg to Althan; 455 citing the ‘Anwartschaft’ in 1528 and the ‘Belehnung’ in 1594 of the Waldburgs with the new dignity. 25 See a detailed description in Dorothee Mußgnug, ‘Die Achte Kurwürde’ in Human- iora. Medizin—Recht—Geschichte. Festschrift für Adolf Laufs zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. B.-R. Kern (Heidelberg/Berlin, 2006), 219–42. 26 Briefly interrupted only from 1706 to 1714, when Bavaria was placed under the Reichsacht. the habsburg court in vienna 103 the compass of one of the existing arch-offices, or challenged lesser offices held by other Reichsstände. Thus, the Saxon Erzmarschall wouldn’t accept a Stallmeister next to him; the Truchseß or Schenk couldn’t face the addition of a Hofmeister, Küchenmeister, or Vorschneider, whereas the creation of an Erzthürhüteramt clashed with the pretensions of Reichserbthürhüter Graf von Werthern (whose only janitorial task, Johann Jacob Moser noted, ‘bestehet [. . .] in der Auf- und Zuschliessung des Wahl-Conclavis.’27 When in 1803 four new worldly electors were created, they also wanted to be invested with arch-offices, and the battle over titles and dignities started with renewed vigour.28 The Golden Bull had stipulated the special rights of electors and the order of imperial meetings, most notably the elections and diets. In the process, it carefully described the specific tasks of Erzämter and Erbämter during the great ceremonies of the Empire. It also stipulated the various rights and benefits connected to the tasks of the Erbämter. Finally, it fleetingly referred to the ‘cotidiani ministri’ or the daily servants at court, who in the last resort, when both the Erzämter and their substitutes were absent, could perform their ceremonial roles.29 Thus, we see a tripartite structure of court office here that brings to mind the hierarchy of grand, premier and ordinaire: a high-ranking officer has a noble substitute, who can be replaced by a daily servant. In early modern practice, we see a rise in power of the electors-archofficers as well as of the Viennese courtiers: the middle layer of Erbämter looked to its superiors to find support against the pretensions of the ‘daily servants’ of the emperor. The conflicts and debates implicitly show how the protagonists pictured the ‘imperial court’ and its relationship to the Habsburg court in Vienna. Before turning to these conflicts, a few words need to be said about the tasks of the Erzämter and Erbämter. Imperial court office and electoral dignity entailed a responsibility for the continuity of the Empire and its conventions. Upon the death of the

27 See Moser, Neues teutsches Staatsrecht, ii: on the Erzämter, 418–34; on Werthern, 471–2. 28 See Johann Ludwig Klüber, Ueber Einführung, Rang, Erzämter, Titel, Wappenzeichen und Wartschilde der neuen Kurfürsten: Commentar und Supplement zu dem 31. §. des Reichs- deputations-Hauptschlusses vom 25. Febr. 1803 (Erlangen, 1803). 29 See the text of the Golden Bull in Arno Buschmann, Kaiser und Reich. Verfassungs- geschichte des Heiligen Römischen Reiches Deutscher Nation vom Beginn des 12. Jahrhun- derts bis zum Jahre 1806 in Dokumenten (2 vols, Baden-Baden, 1994), i.104–56; various Latin variants can be compared at http://www.erlangerhistorikerseite.de/netzsem/gb/gb_frame. html. 104 jeroen duindam ruling emperor, the elector of Mainz as arch-chancellor and the electors of Saxony and the Palatinate of the Rhine as vicars of the Empire were to guarantee a well-ordered interregnum and election.30 The Saxon marshal was responsible for order and quartering in the city of election and coronation—after Ferdinand I’s 1531 Aachen coronation, these two events were almost always combined in the traditional city for the election, Frankfurt. Before 1663, similar responsibilities were connected to the convening of the Reichstag, a burden much diminished following the institution of the permanent diet. These far from negligible tasks were largely delegated to the Reichserbmarschall Pappenheim. His role went beyond the ceremonial tasks performed by his fellow-officeholders. Supported by his Regensburg chancellery, the Reichsquartiermeister, the Reichsprofoß, and their staffs, and in close contact with his liege the elector of Saxony, he took account of the arrival and accommodation of electoral retinues in Frankfurt. The city was divided into quartering sections, each consigned to a specific elector and his following.31 The archive of the Reichserbmarschall provides a glimpse into the practicalities of organizing the curia solemnis of the Empire. It contains detailed quartermas- ters’ diaries for several elections, outlining the day-to-day process. We find endless Fourier Zettel listing the retinues of the electors arriving in Frankfurt—by far surpassing the number of 200 followers on horseback stipulated in the Golden Bull.32 For Leopold I’s coronation in 1658, the Fourierzettel give a total of almost 3,400 in the immediate following of the electors, not counting that of the Bavarian envoy. Most electors, including Leopold, were accompanied by around 500 persons; the Brandenburg Hofstaat counted a modest 252 persons, whereas Saxony ranked high with 704.33 In 1792 the Mainz Erzkanzler alone brought 1,500 persons with him.34 The city of Frankfurt, with a population of around 25,000, not only

30 See Moser, Neues teutsches Staatsrecht, ii.742–96; I leave aside here the contestations between Bavaria and the Palatine about the Reichsvikariat between 1623 and 1777. On the imperial vicars more generally, see Burkhard Gotthelf Struve, Historische Nachricht von den Vicariaten des Heil. Roem. Reichs . . . (Frankfurt, 1740). 31 Moser, Neues teutsches Staatsrecht, ii. 67. 32 Golden Bull I, article 17: see Buschmann, Kaiser und Reich, i. 117. 33 Bundesarchiv Koblenz, AR 4 F, Erbmarschall, microfilmed on 131 films (originals in Staatsarchiv Nürnberg) MF nr 49 Erbmarschall A III 23 Fourier und Futterzettel A III 19, giving various lists, reflecting different dates; Jochen Fühner, ‘Logistik, Versorgung, Sich- erheit’, in Die Kaisermacher, 125, cites a modest 63-person following for Brandenburg in 1741–2. 34 Christian Hattenhauer, Wahl und Krönung Franz II. AD 1792. Das Heilige Reich krönt seinen letzten Kaiser—Das Tagebuch des Reichsquartiermeisters Hieronymus Gottfried von Müller und Anlagen (Frankfurt/Berlin, 1995), 107. the habsburg court in vienna 105 received the electors (or their agents) with their establishments. A mixed bunch of traders, artisans, whores, and others—estimated at c. 40–70,000 for the 1790 and 1792 coronations—flooded the city.35 Traditionally, the marshal held jurisdiction over the foreigners coming into the city. The Erbmarschall’s archive contains a rich variety of ordinances, laying down rules for behaviour, prices, provisioning, stables, cattle, cleanliness and sanitation; a remarkable Hundenordnung for eighteenth-century Regens- burg suggests that not even smaller animals were forgotten.36 Most of the marshal’s responsibilities came with certain rights and gratifications, and the same held true for the more limited responsibilities of the other hereditary court offices of the Empire. The adversely changing balance between the advantages and the costs connected to the office would form the starting-point of a typically endless quarrel between the Erbämter and their various competitors. Organizing daily court life in any princely residence was a serious task, the complications of which become abundantly clear in the courts’ records. In comparison, the convening and ordering of the imperial court during its major assemblies must have represented a baffling task, because the provisioning and quartering, as well as the maintenance of order were more difficult in this temporary and very mixed ‘court’, riven by all sorts of tensions. It presents a strong contrast with the other, mostly ritual duties shouldered by the Erzämter and their substitutes. These, however, were not without their challenges. For the ‘feierliche Ausübung’ of the four offices ‘in solempnibus curiis’, the twenty-seventh chapter of the Golden Bull prescribed a curious series of acrobatics on horseback, in which the electors or their replacements ritually served the emperor in the Schauessen, the meals for show, on the Frankfurt Römerberg. The marshal was expected to drive his horse into a mound of oats, fill a Hab- ermaß, deposit a silver baton in the mound and drive away, leaving his substitute to divide the oats among the spectators. The chamberlain, on horseback with towel in hand, had to fill a silver basin with water, bring it to the emperor, offering the basin to him to wash his hands. The Truch- seß, likewise on horseback, had to ride to the kitchen, cut some meat from the roasted ox ‘mit Wildpret und Geflügel gespicket’, and put it on the emperor’s table.37 The Schenk, finally, had to fill a silver cup with a

35 Hattenhauer, Wahl und Krönung, 107; Fühner, ‘Logistik, Versorgung, Sicherheit’, 123–5. 36 See the May 1786 Verordnung or ‘Hundenordnung’ decreed by the Reichstagspolizei- kommission in Bundesarchiv Koblenz AR 4 F MF 45, Erbmarschall B 271. 37 Vollständiges Diarium, alles dessen, Was vor, in und nach denen . . . Wahl- und Crönungs- Solennitäten des . . . Caroli des VI. . . . Sowol im gantzen Heil. Römischen Reich, Als auch 106 jeroen duindam mixture of wine and water—spouting from a fountain on the Frankfurt Römer square—and hand it to the emperor. With the eighth electorate, a newly nominated Erzschatzmeister was given the task to distribute coins to the cheering crowds—the unlucky Elector Palatine Charles-Louis fell from his horse the first time he performed this duty.38 In these traditional acts, the Erzamt and the Erbamt could perform simultaneously; alternatively the Erbamt could take the place of the absent Erzamt. In the absence of both Erzmarschall and Erbmarschall, the Golden Bull suggests, the mar- escallus curie or Hofmarschall could perform in their stead—another reference to the emperor’s ‘daily court’. These traditional Verrichtungen, witnessed by crowds held at bay by guards, were included in all early modern imperial coronations;39 they introduced an element of popular participation and even open violence into the ceremonial setting of the coronation. The moment of the relin- quishment (Preisgabe) in particular was fraught with expectations of violence. At various stages in the process, elements in the staging of the ceremony were left to the populace. This was the case with the planking and cloth (‘Bretter und Tuch’) over which the procession went from St Bartholomew’s church to the Römer. Moser explains that guards had to make sure the people would rush in only after the procession had left the scene; Lünig reports that the Tuch: ‘. . . sobald man nur darüber kommen, ist zerschnitten, zerrissen und Preiss worden’.40 More spectacularly, the oats, fountain, and particularly the kitchen with the ox were left to the mob. A 1612 engraving of Matthias’ coronation, with a brief explanation, laconically mentions the Preisgabe, ‘. . . welches ohne beschedigung viler

insonderheit in dieser Freyen Reichs- und Wahl-Stadt Franckfurth am Mayn, Von Anfang biß zum Ende passiret ist . . . (Frankfurt, 1712), numbered in several sections, p. 49 of ‘Continu- atio Diarii’. 38 Schubert, ‘Erz- und Erbämter’, 233; the description in Gottlieb von Hagen, Comitiolo- gia Ratisbonensis, de anno 1654: Das ist: Was bey selbigem Reichstage zu Regenspurg: Item, Was daneben bey der Wahl deß. Röm. Königs Ferdinandi IV und dessen Crönung . . . sich erzeiget hat (Frankfurt, 1657) leaves out the episode; Johann Christian Lünig, Theatrum Ceremoniale Historico-Politicum, Oder Historisch- und Politischer Schau-Platz Aller Cer- emonien (Leipzig, 1719), i.1157 gives a brief description of the Elector Palatine’s mishap. 39 See e.g. Bernd Herbert Wanger, Kaiserwahl und Krönung im Frankfurt des 17. Jahr- hunderts: Darstellung anhand der zeitgenössischen Bild- und Schriftquellen und unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Erhebung des Jahres 1612 (Frankfurt, 1994); Die Kaisermacher; Lünig, Theatrum Ceremoniale, i.1138–316 on election and coronation. 40 Moser, Neues teutsches Staatsrecht, ii.334–5; Lünig, Theatrum Ceremoniale, i.1144 (1619); other depictions of violent popular participation in Hattenhauer, Wahl und Krö- nung, 189–190, 192–3. the habsburg court in vienna 107 nit abgegangen.’41 During Ferdinand II’s coronation in 1619, as soon as the Truchseß had cut meat from the ox, the remainder was: torn into many pieces by the crowd, and the kitchens were in a quarter of an hour totally demolished and torn down, likewise there stood before the Römer a fine decorative fountain with an eagle artfully constructed on it as if in flight, from which red and white wine flowed for 2 hours, but which was then also razed, several people being seriously wounded and many stout blows exchanged.42 So many people were getting hurt, and sometimes killed, that at Charles VI’s 1711 coronation it was decided to refrain from the Preisgabe, but this proved impossible: Hereupon, although they tried, as back in 1658, not to release the ox, out of a concern to prevent accident and injury to people, and to preserve it from the soldiery, still the mass of the people broke through, tore to bits both the kitchen and the ox, and dragged away both meat and planks having dismantled the whole kitchen . . .’43 Apparently popular violence was as much part of the celebration as the curiously acrobatic table-service performed for the emperor by his most dignified courtiers. Both indicate elements of ceremony that are not usually highlighted in discussions of early modern courts: comedy, popular participation, violent behaviour. The playful and violent, however, seem to have been present in many other public rituals connecting the court

41 Erzehlung wie der durchleuchtigst, großmuchtigst, Fürst und Herr, . . . Mathias, der ander gekrönte König zu Hungarn und Beheim, . . . von den Churfürsten des Heyligen Römis- chen Reichs, die kayserliche Cron empfangen, und den 24. tag Junij, Anno 1612. . . . gekrönt worden (Augsburg, 1612) description under engraving. 42 ‘. . . vom Povel inn vil Stuckh zerrissen / auch die Kuchen in ainer vvviertl Stundt ganz und gar zerschlaifft und eingerissen worden / desgleichen ist vor dem Romer ein schön gezüehrter springender Brunnen mit einem obhabend gleichsamb fliegende Adler künstlich zugericht gewest / darauss inn 2. stundtlang Rott und weisser Wein geflossen / der doch hernach auch zerschlaifft / darneben dann etliche Persohnen hefftig verwundt / auch sonst gutte Kappen ausgetheilt worden..’: Kayserliche Wahl und Krönung. Relation oder Vorlauff, waß gstalt der Durchleüchtigist Großmächtigist Fürst und Herr, Herr Ferdi- nandus der ander diß namenß, gekrönter König zu Hungeren und Beheimb, Ertzhertzog zu Oesterreich . . . Römischer Kayser den 28. Augusti erwöhlt, unnd folgents den 9. September, diß jars 1619. Sollenniter gekrönet worden (Augsburg, 1619), 5–6. 43 ‘. . . Hierauf nun / ob man zwar / wie anno 1658 beschehen / den Ochsen / zu Verhüt- ung besorglichen Unglücks und Verletzung einiger Menschen / nicht Preis geben / sondern vor die Soldatesca auffbehalten wollen / ist die Menge des Volck doch zugedrungen / hat die Küche und den Ochsen eins mit den andern zerrissen / und Fleisch und Bretter davon geschleppt / und die ganze Küche abgebrochen’: Vollständiges Diarium (Frankfurt, 1712), 49 of ‘Continuatio Diarii’ gives the description with engravings. 108 jeroen duindam with the outer world. The strong presence of the Golden Bull in early modern imperial ceremony must have preserved these rituals when their parallels in other settings were slowly fading away. In other respects too, the Golden Bull would structure debates and practices, though it was ‘rezipiert und inszeniert’ in many different ways.44 In addition to these famous rituals, the Erzämter or their substitutes carried the insignia of the Empire related to their dignity: the orb for the Truchseß, the sword for the marshal, a sceptre for the chamberlain. The new Erzschatzmeister in his turn obtained the right to carry the crown. In a careful choreography, they performed their ceremonial roles in processions and during the church service. The Bohemian Schenk held none of these regalia, the Reichskleinodien, but occupied a central and privileged position in the ritual choreography.45 These highest offices of the imperial court formed but the top layer of a far more diverse set of offices, less conspicuously present in imperial ceremonies, and most often family possessions conveying prestige rather than responsibilities.46 Yet did these four classic court offices with their substitutes form the curia maior of a permanent court? If so, the Habsburg court in Vienna, daily serving the emperor, seems the only likely candidate.

IV. Habsburg Hofämter versus the Imperial Erbämter: An Unequal Battle?

In the course of the early modern age, the relations between the Viennese court and the Reichsämter changed considerably. The gradual strengthening of the worldly electors as rulers of their own domains made them less willing to personally accept their fiefs on bended knee from the emperor. The exceptional 1623 case of Bavaria proved to be the last Thronbelehnung of a worldly elector in person. Even the absolute highpoints of the Empire, the election and coronation, were not invariably attended by the secular electors in person. Their absence, an accepted but deplored exception in

44 Schubert, ‘Erz- und Erbämter’, repeats this formula, e.g. in the conclusion (236): it underlines both the lasting impact of the Golden Bull, and the endless ways in which it could be used. 45 For a detailed discussion of the Kleinodien with illustrations, see Hermann Fillitz, Die Insignien und Kleinodien des Heiligen Römischen Reiches (Vienna/Munich, 1954); the two cities guarding these insignia, Nuremberg and Aachen, struggled for préséance, see e.g. Lünig, Grundfeste Europäischer Potenzen, ii.615–24 (ad 1712). 46 Moser, Neues teutsches Staatsrecht, ii: other offices 461–80, 660–3 (empress’ Erzämter). the habsburg court in vienna 109 the sixteenth century, became more common in the seventeenth century. After the coronation of 1711, where Bavaria and Cologne were absent for obvious reasons, election and coronation would proceed without the personal presence of the worldly electors. Writing at a time of crisis of the Empire, Moser noted: The imperial hereditary officers nowadays never perform their court services to a Roman emperor in person, as hereditary officials, except on the day of his coronation . . . [and] in the electoral houses, whose rulers are kings at the same time, it will probably never occur again that a secular elector discharges his hereditary office in person. In the year 1742 not one of the secular hereditary offices was administered in person.47 Henceforth, the electors were to be represented by their special agents or Wahlbotschafter—a situation with unpleasant consequences for the Erbämter, who now had to deal with yet another rival layer.48 Not only did the role of the electors change. The court in Vienna, the heart of a strong dynastic complex, and the daily environment of the Empire’s highest dignitary, would gradually usurp many of the rights and tasks of the Erbämter. In the ensuing battle for prestige as well as material benefits, the question of the status of the Viennese Hofämter was principal. Were the court dignitaries in Vienna in fact the ‘quotidiani ministri’ of the Golden Bull, who could replace the Erbämter and the Erzämter only if these were absent, and who clearly did not approach them in rank? This was the position taken by the Erbämter. Johann Jacob Moser, the author of two massive series of volumes of teutsches Staatsrecht refers frequently to the Erbämter. His son Friderich Carl Moser published a small volume specifically tracing the conflicts between Erbämter and Hofämter—frequently relying on his ‘dear father’s Staatsrecht’.49 Erbschenk Limpurg, apparently the most energetic defender of the rights of the Erbämter in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth century, stressed that

47 ‘Die Reichs-Ertz-Aemter leisten heutiges Tages ihre Hof-Dienste einem Römischen Kayser in ihrer, derer Ertz-Beamten, eigenen Person niemalen mehr, als an dem Tage seiner Crönung, [. . .] bey denen Chur-Häusern, deren Regenten zugleich Könige seynd, vermuthlich nimmermehr geschehen wird, daß ein weltlicher Chur-fürst sein Ertz-Amt in Person versehe. Anno 1742 wurde kein einiges weltliches Ertz-Amt in Person verwaltet’: Moser, Teutsches Staats-Recht, vi, § 43, p. 107. 48 Ibid., § 4, pp. 111–16, on the conflicts between Erbämter and Wahlbotschafter or other agents sent by the electors. 49 Friderich Carl Moser, Kleine Schriften zur Erläuterung des Staats- und Völcker-Rechts Wie auch des Hof- und Kanzlei-Ceremoniels, Vierter Band (Frankfurt, 1753), 4. 110 jeroen duindam

there is now such an inequality between all these offices at the personal level. The electoral princes occupy their arch-offices with the highest dignity, ordinario ac pleno jure; below them the holders of the Erb-Aemter operate in vim substitutionis, but by inheritance and enfeoffment; whereas the third and last group are no more than under-substitutes in those hereditary offices (Erb-Aemter Affter-Substituirten). Therefore they bear no comparison with the preceding two classes, can hardly rise or set themselves above them, but rather hinder and exclude them from their charges and cut them off and keep them away from the enjoyment thereof.50 Limpurg and his colleagues implored the electors to support their position, and indeed the Wahlkapitulationen from 1619 onwards explicitly stated that the Erbämter held clear superiority over the Hofämter, at least in all tasks pertaining to the Empire. In some of his capacities, the capitulations stated, the Vienna Hofmarschall was dependent on the elector of Saxony as Erzmarschall—more or less parallel to the relationship between the Reichserzkanzler elector of Mainz and the Viennese Reichsvizekanzler, though without the Mainz chancellor’s rights of nomination. At court in Vienna, in the early seventeenth century, this discussion had some resonance. Relations among the four leading court officers, the Obersthofmeister (high steward), the marshal, the chamberlain and the Oberststallmeister (master of the stables), were far from clear. As at many other courts, the staffs of table, chamber, and stables were relatively autonomous, with their supreme officers as leaders of their own domains. The overall supremacy of the steward was rarely challenged, but his major substitute, the marshal, was under pressure to step back in the hierarchy. The marshal held jurisdiction over courtiers, and generally replaced the steward in his capacity as leader of the court. Yet the chamberlain had a far more numerous staff and was more often in the proximity of the emperor—two important criteria of status. Steadily, the chamberlain had acquired a de facto advantage over the marshal. The Stallmeister now felt his time had come to make a move, and argued that he should be ranked as the third leading officer at court, preceding the marshal: he shared the chamberlain’s advantages of a numerous staff and daily proximity. In addition to a variety of other arguments, we find an explicit and full- fledged reference to the tripartite structure of offices as recounted in the Golden Bull:

50 F.C. Moser, Kleine Schriften, 22–3. the habsburg court in vienna 111

When the court marshal serves in actis publicis, as in welcoming the imperial fiefs, then he serves not as Hoffmarschall, but qua vice-marshal of a vice-marshal, as is to be seen in the Bulla Aurea, where he is called not an Obrist hoffmarschall, but Untermarschall, as the last in rank among the marshals; but the Ob[erste]r Stallmeister has no master of the stables above him, only beneath him, so it was quite improper that a vice-office of a vice-office should take precedence over such an eminently high office [Obrist Ampt].51 Clearly this reasoning is highly pragmatic, and entirely determined by the Stallmeister’s ad hoc agenda. Yet it is relevant to note that an argument implicitly stressing the dependence of (elements at) the Habsburg court on the imperial offices could be presented by one of the leading court officers. Moser père himself considered the question several times, but couldn’t come to an explicit and well-founded conclusion. In addition to the clear relation between Mainz as chancellor and the Reichsvizekanzler, he allowed for some dependence of the marshal on his distant superior. On the whole he argued against the overall dependence of other Habsburg court officers on the Erzämter, for which he had found no conclusive evidence.52 The four Erzämter, moreover, reflected an earlier medieval structure of court office, changed since the rise of the Hofmeister or steward from the thirteenth century onwards. Only the chamberlain and the marshal matched the higher offices; even hypothetically fitting in steward and master of the stables would have given rise to endless altercations. Arguments used by the Erbämter and their Viennese rivals were totally impromptu, intended only to support their position; nevertheless they reflect their ideas about what actually constituted the ‘imperial court’. Was the marriage or funeral of an emperor an imperial ceremony? Moser senior reported that Maximilian I during the 1515 double dynastic marriage had worn the imperial ‘Crönungs-Schmuck’ and had indeed been served by ‘Reichs-Aemtern’. Yet Maximilian II’s coronation as king of Bohemia in 1562 had not been attended by imperial officers.53 Bohemia and Hun- gary had their own regalia, and the ceremonies of election and coronation closely reflected the example of the Holy Roman Empire. On the occasion of emperor-king Ferdinand I’s funeral it was not at all clear how the procession should be organized, and which officers should carry which

51 Motiva, warumb der Oberstallmeister’, Haus- Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna [HHStA], Obersthofmeisteramt, [OMeA] Sonderreihe 73, fols 357–9 at 357–8. 52 Moser, Neues teutsches Staatsrecht, ii.483. 53 Moser, Teutsches Staats-Recht, vi.124 ff., § 23 on the Imperial insignia and officers under Maximilian I; F.C. Moser, Kleine Schriften, § 7, pp. 16–18, on the absence of Erbämter in Maximilian II’s Bohemian coronation. 112 jeroen duindam insignia. Erbmarschall Pappenheim was held at bay by Johann Ulrich Zasius (1521–70), who told him that this was not an imperial ceremony, and the sword traditionally to be carried by the marshal was not one of the Reichskleinodien, but Ferdinand’s daily sword.54 Pappenheim, therefore, could not take his formal role in the procession. The hereditary marshal, hardly taken aback, argued that nobody had ever seen the emperor with this particular sword in his lifetime; he added that the Bohemian sword would also be carried in the procession. Finally, he stressed that ‘viel vornehme Reichs-Stände’ would be present. After further recriminations dealing mostly with the proposal that the sword should not be carried unsheathed, as it usually would have been in imperial ceremonies, the honour finally went to the Vienna courtier Hanns Trautson.55 Collectively, the Erbämter appealed to the electors and the emperor stating that that if they were present, they should carry ‘Cron, Apffel, Schwerdt und Scepter’. Their angry statement hardly took into account the complications arising from the fact that the Hungarian and Bohemian crowns had similar regalia, similar ceremonies, and came with their own sets of officers. Clearly, however, the specific dignity of the Reichskleinodien, jealously guarded by the cities of Aachen and Nuremberg, was important in determining as well as displaying the imperial character of a ceremony. This became particularly apparent during the imperial coronation ceremony itself. The emperor-elect would proceed to St. Bartholomew’s church in his Hausor- nat. His own court officers would take off and hold these regalia during the coronation ceremony. The Reichserbämter, in a carefully coordinated ballet with Erzämter and the representatives of Nuremberg and Aachen, would then adorn the emperor with the appurtenances of his new dignity. The Reichskleinodien would not be used in ceremonies pertaining to the Habsburg hereditary lands or the two crowns in Habsburg possession; a clear indication that such highpoints cannot simply be presented as ‘imperial’. The other major criterion given by Pappenheim, the presence of numerous Reichsstände, also needs to be taken into account. While many nobles

54 Zasius at that time served as Hofkanzler and ‘zweiter Reichsvizekanzler’: see Thomas Fellner and Heinrich Kretschmayr, Die österreichische Zentralverwaltung. Vol. I.: Von Maxi- milian I. bis zur Vereinigung der Österreichischen und Böhmischen Hofkanzlei (1749) (3 vols, Vienna, 1907) i. 281, 283. 55 Hanns or Johann Trautson (1507–89), of Tyrolean nobility, ranked among the senior courtiers, serving as marshal and steward at various stages: see Fellner and Kretschmayr, Österreichische Zentralverwaltung, i.275, 278. the habsburg court in vienna 113 present at court in Vienna had connections with the Empire, Reichsfürsten would no longer hold high court office and attend court in Vienna permanently after the early seventeenth century. Duke Heinrich Julius of Bruns- wick (1564–1613), serving as councillor, as chair of the council and as high steward in Rudolf II’s later years, represented a last remarkable example.56 Towards the end of the sixteenth century, we find a retrospective remark, stating that ‘bey Kayser Maximiliani Zeiten Herr Conrad von Pappenheim [. . .] stets dem kayserlichen Hof beygewohnet’.57 Several other Pappen- heim marshals served as the emperor’s councillors in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Reichserbkämmerer Karl Graf von Zollern chaired the Reichshofrat for several years after 1559—and typically quarrelled with the court chamberlain Guzman during his presence at court.58 In the course of the seventeenth century presence at court of the Erbämter was no longer expected. The incumbents of those dignities were now eager mostly to back up financial rights connected to tasks performed in their absence by Viennese courtiers. Recent studies on the Habsburg court tend to underline the gradually increasing dominance of families from the hereditary lands in Vienna, and a decreasing presence of families from the Empire.59

56 See Henry Frederick Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1943), 204–8; Heinz Noflatscher, ‘Rudolf II’ in the online handbook of the Residenzenkommission; http://resikom.adw-goettingen.gwdg.de/artikel. php?ArtikelID=183; ‘Heinrich Julius, Herzog von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel’ in: ADB, xi.500–5. 57 F.C. Moser, Kleine Schriften, 66–7. Ibid., 85 the presence of Erbkämmerer Hohenzol lern at the Vienna court is mentioned—before in 1575 the family split up in the branches of Hechingen, Sigmaringen and Haigerloch. The Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen henceforth served as Erbkämmerer: see the career of Johann Georg Hohenzollern-Hechingen in Schwarz, Imperial Privy Council, 249–52. 58 F.C. Moser, Kleine Schriften, 85; Fellner and Kretschmayr, Österreichische Zentralver waltung, i.277, 284, give Karl von Zollern as Reichshofratspräsident 1559–63 and Martin de Guzman as chamberlain 1553–8. Eitelfriedrich von Zollern (1452–1512) had served Maximil- ian I in various capacities before he received the Erbkämmereramt, ending as councillor and Obersthofmeister: see, e.g., ADB, xlv. 414. 59 For Rudolf II’s courtiers and their provenance see Jaroslava Hausenblasová, ‘National- itäts- und Sozialstruktur des Hofes Rudolfs II. im Prager Milieu an der Wende vom 16. zum 17. Jahrhundert’, in Berichte und Beiträge des Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrums Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas e.V. 1999. Öffentliche Vorträge, 1998–9 (Leipzig, 1999), 20–37, and her Der Hof Kaiser Rudolfs II. Eine Edition der Hofstaatsverzeichnisse, 1576–1612 (Prague, 2002). Important contributions to the prosopography of the emperor’s court in the seventeenth century are Mark Hengerer, Kaiserhof und Adel in der Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts. Eine Kommunikationsgeschichte in der Vormoderne (Konstanz, 2004); Katrin Keller, Hofdamen. Amtsträgerinnen im Wiener Hofstaat des 17. Jahrhunderts (Vienna, 2005); Stefan Sienell, Die Geheime Konferenz unter Kaiser Leopold I. Personelle Strukturen und Methoden zur politischen Entscheidungsfindung am Wiener Hof (Frankfurt, 2001); for Charles VI’s court, see Pečar, Ökonomie der Ehre. 114 jeroen duindam

While princes of the Empire no longer held office at the emperor’s court, the emperor himself sought to promote a handful of his most trusted servants into princely rank. Most court officers in Vienna would be recruited among families primarily based in the hereditary lands and Bohemia— which, of course, did not preclude landed possessions or dynastic connections in other parts of the Empire. The imperial presence at court was obvious in the person of the Reichsvizekanzler, substitute of the Mainz chancellor-elector, and remained relatively strong among the members of the Reichshofrat.60 Notwithstanding the presence of several Hofkanzler from the Empire, the highest court offices and emperor’s privy council in the later seventeenth century show a predominance of the Erblande over the Empire, as Thomas Winkelbauer points out elsewhere in this volume. Among the honorary officers attached to the court, the Empire represented a substantial minority—for the reign of Charles VI Pečar cites c. 15 per cent for chamberlains, 26 per cent for councillors.61 The early modern Habsburg court at all times was a mixed company of courtiers, advisers, servants and artisans from a range of European countries, with a marked presence of Italians, Spaniards, or Flemings in addition to persons from the Empire, the hereditary lands and the two crowns. The attempt to categorize families according to their provenance can never be entirely satisfying, as many families had changed location and service frequently. Nevertheless, the court in Vienna gradually came to reflect the ‘gesamthabsburgische Adel’ rather than the imperial nobility. Following Pappenheim’s criterion of the presence of numerous Reichsstände, we might argue that the court was only during very special occasions truly an ‘imperial’ court. One last argument in this unending and, on the side of the Erbämter, increasingly desperate quarrel may still shed light on our discussion. For- mal Belehnungen, as Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger has argued convincingly, had usually taken place outdoors, and had been staged like tournaments.62 In these open-air shows, the emperor would have appeared in full regalia. This was no longer the rule in the later sixteenth century. On the occasion of the investiture of the Teutschmeister, the grand master of the Teutonic order, in 1613 court officers had apparently pushed aside the Erbämter on their way to the chamber to perform their duties. The Erbämter com-

60 Pečar, Ökonomie der Ehre, 37–8. 61 Ibid., 34, 39. 62 See Stollberg-Rilinger, ‘Verfassungsgeschichte als Geschichte symbolischen Handelns’. the habsburg court in vienna 115 plained that the Hofämter had usurped their role and stolen their financial benefits, but the latter had a ready answer: Now it’s passing strange to hear these Erb-Aembter claim that there’s no difference between the imperial installations which take place publicly and with the customary ceremony and those which occur privately in the chamber, so that they, the Erb-Ämter, are entitled to officiate at the one as at the other and extract their feudal dues.63 The ceremonies, they pointed out, had not been in the open air in ancient style, but ‘in Camera & extra curiam solennem’, which was an entirely different matter.64 As investiture in the chamber became the rule, the Hofämter in principle denied the role of the Erbämter at court in Vienna. There, the Thronbelehnungen by the emperor in person would continue, though behind closed doors, with the Reichvizekanzler and court officers rather than Erbämter—and with envoys rather than with the princes themselves. Not only were the Erbämter prevented from performing their ceremonial duties; they were also denied the benefits. This increasingly came to be the core of the dispute. While inevitably the honour of the offices themselves, the dignity of their superiors the Erzämter, and in the last resort the prestige of the Empire and its traditions were invoked, the claims supported by this rhetoric were largely material. The hereditary officers could expect to be supported with their horses and servants during ceremonies; they had a right to the material leftovers of ceremonies within their purview: all sorts of attributes including cloth, stools, canopies, horses, tableware, or the silver batons, cup and bowls used in the coronation Verrichtungen. Also they could demand specified sums from participants in Belehnungen, and could expect substantial Gratialien and Verehrungen from the electors following election and coronation. Absence posed a serious disadvantage here, and most benefits attached to the feudal investitures of the Empire in practice went to the Viennese courtiers who performed the duties. In fact, wages of the Viennese courtiers and servants in most ranks were low, and all sorts of extras were necessary to achieve an acceptable standard of living.65 Full-blown tables existed, citing the gratifications to be paid to the court hierarchy on all sort of occasions, imperial Belehnungen among them. The rules reiterated in the Wahlkapitulationen in favour of the

63 F.C. Moser, Kleine Schriften, 82. 64 Ibid., 95. 65 See my Vienna and Versailles, ch. 4. 116 jeroen duindam

Erbämter therefore had little or no impact. J.J. Moser’s conclusion seems quite right: ‘So far as I am aware, the Hof-Aemter in fact draw these fees and the Reichs-Erb-Aemter receive nothing.’66 Honorific office came with serious costs, but did not necessarily bring riches. When Maximilian II in 1566 asked the support of his vassal Erb- schenk Limpurg for the Hungarian war, the Schenk replied in desolate terms, stressing his impecuniousness, and the serious burdens attached to his office, from which he obtained nothing but ‘blossen Nahmen und Ehr . . .’. He could not be expected to do more than shoulder his ceremonial responsibilities in diet and election.67 The marshal, more active than his fellow officers, also had to assume more costs, and enjoyed more forms of income. After the demise of the Empire, a meticulous overview was published to support the ‘Entschädigungs-Berechtigung’ of the former Reichserbmarschall.68 In addition to the forms of income mentioned, the marshal enjoyed a series of rights connected to his jurisdiction over several groups in the city of election and coronation, notably the missions of the Reichsstände and diplomats present in the city for election and coronation, but including other strangers allowed into the city for the occasion to practice their trades. Fines, exemptions, permissions, custom duties and Schutzbriefe for Jews all brought money into the marshal’s coffers. These rights were the object of more quarrels particularly with the imperial cities hosting the ceremonies—Frankfurt, Regensburg, and several other incidental sites. In 1614 the city magistrates proposed to provide a lump sum in compensation for the marshal’s rights, a solution hesitantly accepted, yet immediately undermined.69 Bickering over these matters continued up to the last coronation in Frankfurt. Even the Erbmarschall’s unchallenged jurisdiction over the Wahlbotschaften was limited somewhat by the rights of the Habsburg Hofmarschall. A major portion of the Erbmarschall’s archive is filled with a defence of his jurisdiction and the

66 Moser, Neues teutsches Staatsrecht, ii.449. 67 F.C. Moser, Kleine Schriften, § 8, pp. 18–22. 68 Georg Joseph Wedekind, Die Entschädigungs-Berechtigung und Ansprüche des Reichs-Erbmarschalls Grafen zu Pappenheim und seiner Familie an die höchste Souverainen Deutschlands (Regensburg, 1809), 35–7 § 21 for an overview of the ‘Emolumenten’. 69 See the 1614 arrangement (and often its 1619 follow-up) printed and discussed in many locations: e.g., Lünig, Teutsche Reichs-Archiv, x, Graffen und Herren, with the ‘Ver- trag zwischen den Herren Reichs-Erb-Marschallen / Graffen von Pappenheim / und denen Reichs-Städten / de Anno 1614. Nebst Kaysers Matthiae confirmation’ at. 183–9; Moser, Neues teutsches Staatsrecht, ii. 358–9. Hattenhauer, Wahl und Krönung, 102–4, discusses at length the complications arising from the arrangement in 1792: see the edition of the quartermaster’s journal at 355–8, and the answer of the city at 392–8. the habsburg court in vienna 117 income flowing from it against these contestants.70 In 1809, obviously, in the context of the ‘Entschädigungs-Berechtigung’ it was important to present the income of the former marshal in a positive perspective; the author estimated the income for 1790 and 1792—both coronation years— at 60,000 and 50,000 fl. respectively.71 This was not enough, however: the marshal and his colleagues frequently asked for, and sometimes received, extra support from the electors and the emperor.72 The last functioning Reichserbmarschall early in 1804 wrote a letter to congratulate each of the four new electors, thanking them for the ‘zugestellte Gratial’ but implor- ing them in poignant terms for their support in these difficult times, ‘. . . to save what my forbears have acquired with all manner of sacrifices . . .’.73 Typically, he seems to have referred in one breath to the financial position of his Haus, the prestige of his office, and the ceremonial splendour of the Empire.

V. Concluding Remarks

Three criteria defining the imperial court recur in the discussions between Viennese Hofämter and imperial hereditary offices: the procession with the Reichskleinodien, the presence of a substantial number of high-ranking Reichsstände, and the open-air staging of ceremonies with a marked pub- licity. Clearly these are all connected to the curia solemnis, the exceptional occasion of a ruler meeting with his highest-ranking subjects, an emperor with his princes. No Hofstaat in the Empire, not even that of the emperor himself, could ever take that place: it remained tied to the occasion. Yet did the Habsburg court in Vienna (and briefly Prague) function as the curia minor of the Empire? Can we see the court dignitaries as the substitutes of Erz- and Erbämter? In a way, the argument so emphatically made by the Erbämter rings true: the Viennese courtiers resided permanently at court, in the ruler’s vicinity, and so can be identified as the ‘quotidiani ministri’ from the Golden Bull. The emperors’ most dignified servants in

70 Bundesarchiv Koblenz AR 4 F MF 17–28, and many other incidental documents elsewhere; see, e.g., the anonymous printed Gründlicher Beweis der des Heil. Römischen Reichs- Erb-Marschall Ambt . . . auf Reichs, Wahl und Crönungs Tagen über derer Reichs-Stände und deren Gesandtschafften, Bediente und Domestiquen . . . Jurisdiktion (Regensburg, 1728) with corrections in the margin. AR 4 F MF 34, B 24. 71 Wedekind, Entschädigungs-Berechtigung, 45 n. 72 See Hattenhauer, 101–2; J.J. Moser, Neues teutsches Staatsrecht, ii, § 313, pp. 356 ff. 73 Bundesarchiv AR 4 F, Erbmarschall, MF 34 B 30. Copy of letter to the new electors, 31 Jan. 1804. 118 jeroen duindam

Vienna, however, had obtained a position that made them far more than the substitutes of the Erbämter—they had in practice eclipsed them. The Hofstaat in Vienna, furthermore, was the basis for more than one curia maior: it staged Bohemian and Hungarian coronations, with courtly appa- ratuses mimicking that of the Empire; it stood as the courtly centre of a dynastic complex that captured the attention of wide audiences with its public outdoor ceremonies and progresses, in Vienna and in the regions. Each of these territories had its own set of usually passive court officers, to be roused only for ceremonial occasions pertaining to their own region. At different moments in the political-ceremonial cycle, the ruler could be served by different sets of persons. The range of geographical and political guises the court of the Habs burg emperor could take underscores the remarkable flexibility of the courtly structure in general. The imperial court, tied to isolated grand events, reminds us that courts were occasions as well as institutions. The balance between the Viennese court and the imperial curia maior, awk- wardly fitting the set categories of modern formalized institutions, took shape, as did so many early modern political relationships, in an ongoing improvised interaction among the participants, underpinned by a tradition bent to fit the needs of everyday contestation. This aspect was equally present at Versailles, with its unclear hierarchies and its endless quarrels among the various layers and segments of court office. A comparison with Vienna and the Empire, however, suggests that in one sense the old thesis of ‘domestication’ of nobles at court is true. In the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the highest nobles of France came to hold, and dominate, leading offices at court. The court retained its changing character, oscillating between public ceremonial occasions and day-to-day court life. Yet the temporary superstructure of the grands assembled around the king had become permanent—even if the grands could still leave to govern provinces or command armies. In the same phase, the electors and other major figures from the Empire increasingly distanced themselves from the emperor’s curia minor, and finally withdrew even from the imperial curia maior, leaving it to their envoys and substitutes. Integration occurred at both courts, but at a different level. The lasting imperial dimension, never truly integrated around the Vien- nese court, helped to strengthen the connections between the emperor and the families among whom he would choose his senior courtiers and councillors. No noble layer stood between the French royal family and the major families of courtiers, holding de facto hereditary positions. These the habsburg court in vienna 119 haughty servants were less deferential than their Viennese counterparts, and saw their elevated and lucrative position at court as a right rather than as the ruler’s grace. The Viennese court successfully integrated the Habsburg lands around its own institutions, titles and occasions. It could not aspire to become the curia maior of the Empire, and declined to be its curia minor in the sense that Habsburg courtiers wouldn’t look upon themselves as substitutes. A Kaiserhof or emperor’s court it inevitably was; a Reichshof or imperial court, it could only be during certain occasions, and it shared this increasingly rare honour with a range of other centres.

Bohemia and the Empire: Acceptance and Rejection

Jaroslav Pánek

The relationship between a small nation and state and its powerful neighbour can easily become, and in European history often did become, a trauma that influences not only the activities of politicians, but also the ways of thinking on both sides, as a rule more significantly on the side of the weaker party to such a juxtaposition. In this sense we can identify the main and never-ending theme in the history of Bohemia and its inhabitants: it is the relation to the Germans, Germany and to the Empire. During more than one millennium of their coexistence its objective content, of course, changed a lot. While in the early and high Middle Ages it meant mainly a limited relationship between the Czech governing dynasty and the imperial authority, in the late Middle Ages and in the early modern era the thematic field of Czech–German relations widened. The participants acting there and formulating their viewpoints were not only the sovereign and his court, but also the nobility, townspeople and clergy, including the intellectual elite. In view of the fact that from the thirteenth century until the end of the Second World War in Bohemia and Moravia there lived a very strong German minority, ethnical and language issues also became part of the relation between the Bohemian kingdom and the Reich. The issue of the relationship of these two constitutional law entities (státoprávní celky or staatsrechtliche Elemente) became also the object of a strong nationalist tension as early as the seventeenth century, when it occurred only sporadically, but much more commonly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The discussions on the relationship between Bohemia and the Reich, which developed after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, reflected the extraordinary and complicated nexus between these two territorial and legal subjects of medieval and early modern Europe. It was this untypical and changeable relationship between Bohemia and the Reich that created a background where on each rival side only certain favourable elements of the development would be taken into account to create different, sometimes even contradictory models of interpretation. This complexity, interpreted 122 jaroslav pánek nowadays by contemporary German and Czech historiography,1 can be only sketched in what follows. The territory of Bohemia and Moravia, together with other lands of the Bohemian crown—Silesia and Upper and Lower Lusatia—undoubtedly belonged to the area under the authority of Roman (Roman-German) monarchs in the period of growing imperial universalism. In the early and high Middle Ages, efforts to subordinate the Bohemian lands directly to the emperor, or even to appoint members of the governing Roman- German dynasty to the Bohemian crown, appeared regularly. This tendency culminated in the last quarter of the twelfth century with the threat of the dissolution of Bohemia (ruled by the Přemyslid dynasty) into three independent Reich principalities—the duchy of Bohemia, the margravate of Moravia and the bishopric of Prague, that were to be subordinated directly to the emperor Frederick I. The imperial authority then declined, which brought a reversal of power, so that of Bohemian rulers increased and they were able substantively to affect the issues of the Reich.2 In spite of periodic disorders, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Bohemian statehood gradually strengthened. In 1198, when Bohemia definitively became a kingdom, the Bohemian king could be only the vassal of the emperor (or of the Roman king as the future emperor—futurus imperator) and the Bohemian kingdom was not a fief, but only a part of the Reich. Therefore there appeared to be a mutually beneficial relationship between the Bohemian and Roman rulers, which helped to stabilize the specific relationship between Bohemia and the Reich. The emperor formally confirmed the Bohemian king, who had been accepted according to the Bohemian provincial or land laws; according to his title the Bohe- mian sovereign held also the office of arch-cupbearer (Erzschenk) which meant, very importantly, membership in the body of electors (Kurfürsten),

1 Zdeněk Fiala, „Vztah českého státu k německé říši do počátku 13. století“, Sborník his torický, 6 (1958), 23–95; Wilhelm Wegener, Böhmen, Mähren und das Reich im Hochmittel alter. Untersuchungen zur staatsrechtlichen Stellung Böhmens und Mährens im Deutschen Reich des Mittelalters, 919–1253 (Cologne/Graz, 1959); Friedrich Prinz, Böhmen im mittel alterlichen Europa (Munich, 1984); Volker Press, ‘Böhmen und das Reich in der Frühen Neuzeit’, Bohemia. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der böhmischen Länder, 35 (1994), 63–74; Jaroslav Pánek, ‘Der böhmische Staat und das Reich in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Alternativen zur Reichsverfassung in der Frühen Neuzeit?, ed. Volker Press and Dieter Stiev- ermann (Munich, 1995), 169–78. The most recent work is Alexander Begert, Böhmen, die böhmische Kur und das Reich vom Hochmittelalter bis zum Ende des Alten Reiches. Studien zur Kurwürde und zur staatsrechtlichen Stellung Böhmens (Husum, 2003). 2 Zdeněk Fiala, Přemyslovské Čechy. Český stát a společnost v letech 995–1310 (Prague, 1965), 120–37: ‘The state of the Přemyslids and the Roman-German Empire’. bohemia and the empire: acceptance and rejection 123 who chose the sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire. The combination of the personal feudal relationship between the emperor and the Bohemian king, and the loose incorporation of Bohemia into the Reich, became the starting-point of the relationship between these two entities of state- constitutional law during the whole existence of the Reich until 1806.3 From the viewpoint of the long-term development it was important that the duties of the Bohemian king as a feudatory (e.g. his attendance at Reichstags, his stay at the imperial court, his participation in the coronation ride to Rome) were only formal and their importance gradually ceased, while the importance of the Bohemian king himself increased and enabled him to intervene in the politics of the Reich to a very large extent. The Golden Bull of Charles IV in 1356 established the position of the Bohemian kingdom as an extraordinary part of the Reich: Sacri Imperii membrum nobile. The Bohemian king, who was until the end of the seventeenth century the only princeps coronatus et unctus among the princes of the Reich, then definitely occupied the first place among the secular electors. In terms of the constitution of the Reich in the mid-fourteenth century, Bohemia became the key part of the Reich; but at the same time it maintained its privileged autonomy. This was expressed, moreover, by the fact that the formal feudal relationship between the emperor and the Bohemian king did not influence the elevation of a new ruler to the vacant Bohemian throne after the extinction of a dynasty, as the election of the king remained the duty of the estates (per regnicolas).4 In the mid-fourteenth century, there occurred a union of the titles of the Roman emperor and Bohemian king in one person, which set a precedent for the relationship between Bohemia and the Reich in the early modern era. The lands of the Bohemian crown—although geographically located eccentrically to the east of the territory—still belonged to the Reich; and thus they could form the basis of the power of the emperor and strengthen the country’s extraordinary position within the Reich. The

3 Zdeněk Fiala, „Počátky české účasti v kurfiřtském sboru“, Sborník historický, 8 (1961), 27–66; Jiří Veselý, ‘K otázce lenního vztahu k římské říši v českých dějinách’, Sborník archivních prací, 29 (1979), 56–116; id., ‘Byl český král leníkem biskupa bamberského?’, Sborník archivních prací, 31 (1981), 3–52; Josef Žemlička, Počátky Čech královských, 1198–1253. Proměna státu a společnosti (Prague, 2002), esp. 103–11. 4 Jiří Spěváček, Karl IV. Sein Leben und seine staatsmännische Leistung (Prague, 1978), 112–62; Heniz Stoob, Kaiser Karl IV. und seine Zeit (Graz etc., 1990), 94–103; František Kavka, Vláda Karla IV. za jeho císařství, 1355–78. Země České koruny, rodová, říšská a evropská poli tika. Vol. 1: 1355–64, (Prague, 1993), 47–54, 89–96; Lenka Bobková, Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české Vol. IV/a: 1310–1402 (Prague/Litomyšl, 2003), 318–24. 124 jaroslav pánek emperor—the feudal lord—could not confer upon the Bohemian king— his vassal—anything more than the dignity of elector and arch-cupbearer; and as far as the territory was concerned, then only the imperial fiefs that were located outside the boundaries of Bohemia and Moravia could be offered to him. These were the territories of Silesia and Lusatia, which belonged to the lands of the Bohemian crown, and then several smaller territories to the west of Bohemia’s borders in Saxony, the Palatinate and Bavaria ( feuda extra curtem). These territories were connected with the Bohemian crown by the feudal system, developed within the framework of the Bohemian state, but at the same time they had the status of mesne fiefs of the Reich (Afterlehen).5 The dramatic development of Central Europe in the fifteenth century, especially the Hussite revolution, long-term interregna and their social and political impact significantly loosened the connection between Bohemia and the Reich.6 The strong Bohemian estates, together with the kings of the Jagellonian dynasty, did not intend to involve their country in the issues of the Reich and preferred to isolate Bohemia from it. From the 1470s the titles of elector and arch-cupbearer, held by the Bohemian king, remained the only legal connection of Bohemia to the Reich. On the other hand, the Reich did not aim to incorporate the lands of the Bohe- mian crown into the process of modernization of the Reich around 1500; therefore the jurisdiction of the new or reformed institutions (Reichstag, Reichskammergericht, Reichskreise) did not apply to Bohemia. It did not mean that Bohemia was separated from the Reich; it was just another significant step towards a structural division between the two parties.7 In 1526 the ascension of the Habsburgs to the Bohemian throne again simplified the relation of the Bohemian crown to the Reich in the long- term perspective, since during the whole early modern era the relationship of the feudal lord (the emperor) to the vassal (the Bohemian king) worked within the framework of a single dynasty. However, as far as actual power

5 Matthias Weber, Das Verhältnis Schlesiens zum Alten Reich in der Frühen Neuzeit (Cologne etc., 1992); Lenka Bobková, Územní politika prvních Lucemburků na českém trůně (Ústí nad Labem, 1993), esp. 141–9; Christine van Eickels, Schlesien im böhmischen Ständestaat. Voraussetzungen und Verlauf der böhmischen Revolution von 1618 in Schlesien (Cologne etc., 1994), 16–22; Joachim Bahlcke, Regionalismus und Staatsintegration im Wid erstreit. Die Länder der Böhmischen Krone im ersten Jahrhundert der Habsburgerherrschaft, 1526–1619 (Munich, 1994), 39–55. 6 Veselý, ‘K otázce lenního vztahu’, 63; František Šmahel, Die Hussitische Revolution (3 vols., Stuttgart, 2002), esp. iii. 1819–65. 7 Veselý, ‘K otázce lenního vztahu’, 61–72; Petr Čornej and Milena Bartlová, Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české. Vol. VI: 1437–1526 (Prague/Litomyšl, 2007), 480–1. bohemia and the empire: acceptance and rejection 125 conflicts were concerned, the feudal relationship underwent regular and repeated changes. In the period of the election campaign after the extinction of the Jagellonian dynasty it meant a threat to the traditional relationship. Ferdinand I used all means in order to acquire the Bohemian throne, even the authority of his brother, the Emperor Charles V, whom he asked to confer to him the Bohemian lands as a fief. This process, contradictory to the long-term practice, was not, however, successful, and Ferdinand only achieved his purpose later when he accepted nomination as one of the candidates in a free election. The Bohemian estates that decided the election did not accept either the hereditary claims of the Habsburgs or the applicability of any independent feudal institutions.8 Ferdinand I then tried to use the feudal law again, once more in a critical situation. During the Schmalkaldic War—in February 1547—when he demanded military help for Charles V from the Bohemian estates, he stated that they had been obliged to do it for the emperor as he was the ‘feudal lord of the Bohemian crown’.9 Again, he did not succeed.10 The feudal law in the early modern era was definitely losing its importance and the efforts to use it from time to time contradicted the divergent development of the relationship between Bohemia and the Reich. Even Ferdinand I, after his coronation had taken place in Prague, did not hasten to accept the fief and respected the principle that the Bohe- mian king accepted the investiture from the emperor only when he was close to the boundary of his country; therefore he waited until 1541 when Charles V was staying at Regensburg. During the ceremony, he was given only the offices of the elector and arch-cupbearer, not the territory of the Bohemian kingdom itself.11 The divergence between Bohemia and the Reich was supported by the Habsburgs on the Bohemian throne with the aim of centralizing their power in the Bohemian crown and in the Habsburg Monarchy. In 1545 Ferdinand I rejected the resolution of the Reichstag that tried to impose

8 Antonín Rezek, Geschichte der Regierung Ferdinands I. in Böhmen Vol. 1: Ferdinands I. Wahl und Regierungsantritt (Prague, 1878); Josef Janáček, České dějiny. Doba předbělohorská 1526–1547, vol. I/1, (Prague, 1971), 28–56 , vol. I/2 (Prague, 1984), 17–26; Winfried Eberhard, Konfessionsbildung und Stände in Böhmen, 1478–1530 (Munich/Vienna, 1981), 202–13; Petr Vorel, Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české Vol. VII: 1526–1618, (Prague/Litomyšl, 2005), 29–43. 9 Akta všech těch věcí (Prague, n.d.), 16 (reprint of the official publication issued by Ferdinand I in 1547). 10 Janáček, České dějiny, vol. I/2, 179–209; Winfried Eberhard, Monarchie und Wider stand. Zur ständischen Oppositionsbildung im Herrschaftssystem Ferdinands I. in Böhmen (Munich, 1985), 399–453. 11 Josef Kalousek, České státní právo (Prague, 1892), 52. 126 jaroslav pánek taxes also on the inhabitants of the Bohemian lands. The king argued that Bohemia was not a fief of the Reich but ‘another, independent realm and nation’.12 Although this legal argument was not accepted in the Reich, in the mid-sixteenth century the same form of a loose former bond between Bohemia and the Reich was asserted, on the same lines as the arrangement in Lorraine and Burgundy. In this period absolutely contradictory interpretations of the relationship between Bohemia and the Reich started to appear. The political practice of the estates and of the sovereign proved that in the Bohemian state none of the three basic criteria of legal subordination to the Reich were valid. Firstly, its inhabitants were not subject to the conclusions of the Reichstag; they did not pay taxes and provide assistance to the Reich, as demanded by the imperial estates. Secondly, they were not subject to the jurisdiction of the Reichskammergericht or other judicial bodies of the Reich. If there occurred appeals to ‘higher courts’ in the Reich (mainly in Magdeburg) after hearings in front of the city courts in Bohemia, according to the still existing tradition of medieval city law, Ferdinand I tried to hamper it and he founded a Bohemian court of appeal in Prague in 1548.13 Thirdly, unlike Austria, the lands of the Bohemian crown did not belong to any of the ten regions of the Reich—the Reichs- kreise, founded in the early sixteenth century to provide legal, military and financial authority.14 The only real bond remained the title of elector that was secured by the feudal relation between the Bohemian king and the Roman emperor. Nevertheless, this relation lost its importance after the abdication of Charles V and the accession of Ferdinand I in 1556. The feudal lord and his vassal became one person, and the fief itself temporarily ceased to exist after the so-called ‘consolidation’.15 The formulation of the relationship to the Reich was not an issue for the ruler alone in an early modern state which possessed a dualis- tic establishment. The Bohemian estates, who considered themselves the guarantees of the unity of the Bohemian crown following the privileges of Charles IV, remained indifferent towards the Reich as external observers,

12 Begert, Böhmen, 595. 13 Karolina Adamová, ‘Apelační soud v Českém království v letech 1548–1651’, in Karel Malý (ed.), Pocta akademiku Václavu Vaněčkovi k 70. narozeninám (Prague, 1975), 101–12. 14 Atlas zur Geschichte, ed. Lothar Berthold, vol. 1 (Gotha/Leipzig, 1981), 51, map 51/II: ‘Deutsche Kreisteilung’. 15 Veselý, ‘K otázce lenního vztahu k římské říši’, 95; Alfred Kohler, Ferdinand I. 1503– 1564. Fürst, König und Kaiser (Munich, 2003), 264–71. bohemia and the empire: acceptance and rejection 127 provided that the Reich did not collide with their interests. However, in the mid-sixteenth century a significant conflict led to a crystallization of the attitude of a clear majority of the Bohemian estates towards the Reich. The conflict occurred between two aristocratic circles: one was led by Heinrich IV of Plauen, the supreme chancellor of the Bohemian kingdom, and his opponent was Vilém of Rožmberk, the most powerful nobleman in the country. The conflict at first concerned specific privileges of the two houses, but soon developed into an effort either to preserve or to change the land ordinance (Zřízení zemské, Landesordnung) significantly.16 Heinrich of Plauen, qua Bohemian nobleman as well as qua prince of the Reich, exploited his exclusive position, and after the defeat of the anti-Habsburg revolt in 1547 he succeeded in incorporating into the new Bohemian land ordinance of 1549 a statute concerning the superiority of princes over other lords and especially over the traditionally privileged house of Rožmberk. Such a change in the constitution was sharply rejected by the majority of Bohemian noblemen. They understood very well that the issue was not only a conflict of two noble houses, but they clearly saw its potential consequences—the foundation of a new princely estate, the degradation of lords and knights, changes in the provincial government, judiciary and diet.17 The threat of disorder to all estate institutions was averted in 1556 and their existing structure was maintained. The newly formed political ideology of the Bohemian nobility accepted as one of its basic principles the fact that any political or structural interventions from the Reich were unacceptable in Bohemia; if the Reich princes settled there, they could acquire only such a position as resulted from their aristocratic status and from their land ownership in the country.18 Until the defeat of the estates’ rebellion in 1620 the Bohemian nobility refused to accept any legal titles of the Reich and dutifully protected the sovereignty of the Bohemian state against the Empire. They a priori rejected the competence of the institutions of the Reich in issues of the Bohemian lands, even in multilateral conflicts (e.g. between the duchy of

16 The most important sources on this conflict between the Bohemian and imperial law traditions are published in Sněmy české. Die böhmischen Landtagsverhandlungen und Landtagsbeschlüsse, vol. II (Prague, 1880), 715–51; Jaroslav Pánek (ed.), Václav Březan, Životy posledních Rožmberků, vol. 1 (Prague, 1985), 83–110, 122–42. 17 Josef Jireček and Hermenegild Jireček (ed.), Zřízení zemská království Českého XVI. věku (Prague, 1882), 138, art. A-9. 18 Jaroslav Pánek, ‘Zápas o vedení české stavovské obce v polovině 16. století (Knížata z Plavna a Vilém z Rožmberka, 1547–56)’, Československý časopis historický, 31 (1983), 855– 84; id., Vilém z Rožmberka. Politik smíru (2nd edn, Prague, 2011), 141–76. 128 jaroslav pánek

Bavaria or the bishopric of Passau on one side and the inhabitants of the Bohemian kingdom on the other). For the Bohemian (ethnically Czech) nobility the only competent arbitrator was the king (at the same time the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire), never the Reichstag or the Reichskam- mergericht. This orientation of political thought of course modified after 1620, but even afterwards the Bohemian (ethnically multilingual) nobility did not orientate itself primarily towards the institutions of the Reich, but towards the Habsburg court in Vienna.19 The effort to define the two basically different legal spheres, Bohemian and imperial, reflected the attitude towards the Reich as a foreign institution that had its seat outside the Bohemian kingdom and that had no universal claims to make on the kingdom. This attitude, however, meant no isolation from the Reich or from the territorial states existing within its framework. If the Bohemian and sometimes also Moravian estates found it profitable, especially when they had to face a war menace, they were able to act even more actively than the sovereign. When Hungary and Moravia had to fight against Ottoman expansion, the Bohemian government demanded help from the electors, princes of the Reich, noblemen and the city of Nuremberg; each of which had been given some of the feuda extra curtem, and therefore, in the view of the Bohemian estates, had to defend the kingdom and crown of Bohemia against the external menace. Military help was also demanded by means of ‘hereditary friendship agreements’ (Erbeinungen) that were signed by the Bohemian kings (with the approval of the Bohemian estates) with the rulers of Saxony and Palatinate before the end of the sixteenth century. In these cases (as with agreements between Bohemia and Poland) the parties to the contract acted as partners in inter-state dealings, having equal rights, despite the fact that they both belonged to the Reich.20

19 See, e.g., Sněmy české. Die böhmischen Landtagsverhandlungen und Landtags beschlüsse, vol. IX (Prague, 1897), 487–8. 20 Exhaustive documentation on this topic is in Ludwig Bittner (ed.), Chronologisches Verzeichnis der österreichischen Staatsverträge, vol. 1 (Vienna, 1903); František Roubík and Václav Líva (ed.), Regesta fondu Militare Archivu ministerstva vnitra RČS (2 vols, Prague, 1937–8); Čornej and Bartlová, Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české, vi.480; Jaroslav Pánek, ‘Podíl předbělohorského českého státu na obraně střední Evropy proti osmanské expanzi’, Československý časopis historický, 36 (1988), 71–84; id., ‘Die antiosmanischen Feldzüge aus Böhmen nach Ungarn in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Rapports, co-rapports, communications tchécoslovaques pour le VIe Congrès de l‘Association internationale d‘Etudes du Sud-Est européen (Prague, 1989), 67–101. bohemia and the empire: acceptance and rejection 129

The formal relationship between the emperor and the Bohemian king, expressed in terms of vassalage, lost its importance after 1556. Further- more, the dispatch of delegations to Italy for the imperial coronation, or to stay at the court and at the Reichstag fell into abeyance as unneces- sary medieval ceremonial relics. Only the formal grant of the fief took place from time to time, when real or titular sovereignty in Bohemia became temporarily separated from the person of the emperor. The feudal relationship needed to be refreshed when the Bohemian king wanted to extort acknowledgment of his rule in Bohemia in spite of the refusal of the emperor (e.g. Matthias in conflict with Rudolf II) or when a ruling Habsburg wanted to ensure the succession of his son by this archaic means. While in 1611 Matthias’s plan did not come to fruition, in the case of Ferdinand II (1619), Ferdinand III (1628) and Ferdinand IV (1653), the investiture was carried out. On all these occasions the fief was awarded by the emperor and the ruling Bohemian king to the crown prince, in other words to the ‘younger Bohemian king’. The instruments of the feudal law were then used as a means of overcoming the crisis of Habsburg rule in Bohemia, caused by the estates’ rebellion and afterwards by the vicissitudes of the Thirty Years War. Under the unstable legal circumstances of the first half of the seventeenth century the repeated use of the feudal bond helped to strengthen vertical links in society. Therefore it was used purposefully not only in the relationship between the emperor and the Bohemian king, but also on a lower level in the relationship between the Bohemian king and the nobility, when free noblemen with allodia were transferred to the position of vassals, personally dependent on the king and only in temporary possession of feudal property.21 As early as the second half of the seventeenth century the Habsburg Monarchy stabilized and such feudal institutions were no longer necessary. However, the Bohemian electorate remained a means of intervention in the issues of the Reich and thus also in wider European relationships. When the number of electors grew to nine, and after the rise of three of them—those of Saxony, Brandenburg and Hanover—into the ranks of European royalty, Emperor Joseph I decided that it would be profitable if he again elicited the active participation of representatives of the Bohe- mian king in his capacity as elector, to exert influence on issues of the

21 Kalousek, České státní právo, 57–8; Veselý, ‘K otázce lenního vztahu’, 73–8; Vorel, Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české, vii. 80–7. 130 jaroslav pánek

Empire. In 1708 the so-called ‘readmission’ meant an unprecedented institutional change in the relationship between Bohemia and the Empire.22 After two hundred years Bohemia belatedly participated in the process of modernization of the structure of the Reich, although with only a minimum result. A representative of the emperor as the Bohemian king entered the collegium of the electors at the Reichstag in Regensburg as the permanent ‘Bohemian’ envoy, and at the same time a ‘Bohemian’ assessor was named to the Reichskammergericht at Wetzlar. The Bohemian king agreed to contribute to the existence of both central institutions of the Reich (the assemblies in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia approved a special contribution of 12,000 florins a year). In exchange for this the Reich had to protect the lands of the Bohemian crown. From an institutional viewpoint the formal bond between the Bohemian kingdom and the Empire was substantially satisfied, while in functional terms the result was rather minute. The Bohemian lands did not have to obey the laws of the Reich or the decisions of the Reichskammergericht, neither did they collect regular taxes for the Reich. After 1740, during the wars of the Austrian Succession, Bohemia could not expect any help from the Reich. The Reich was obviously unable to fulfil this part of the agreement and the Habsburgs did not want to allow any intervention of the princes of the Reich in Bohemian affairs. The institutional provisions were only half-hearted and served, with the help of the Bohemian electorate, to support the activities of the Habsburg emperors in the inner policy of the Holy Roman Empire.23 In spite of this seemingly radical change, there did not develop any closer relationship between Bohemia and the Empire. In the eighteenth century the issue of the Bohemian electorate and the feudal bond to the Reich remained the object of ceremonial thinking of royal and estates’ officers. In the 1730s, and again in the 1760s in the circles around Joseph II, there appeared expert opinions on a possible modification of the claims of the Bohemian king to an office of the Reich. They dealt only with partial changes of a ceremonial kind and with a proposal to associate the Bohe- mian electorate with a new title of Erzhofmeister, while the title of Erz schenk was to be transferred to the ninth and newest elector of Hanover. The formalistic character of such ideas indicated that they had no real content any more. Despite the efforts to make changes in the aftermath

22 Begert, Böhmen, 442–76. 23 Kalousek, České státní právo, 59–62; Veselý, ‘K otázce lenního vztahu’, 82; Press, ‘Böhmen und das Reich’, 72. bohemia and the empire: acceptance and rejection 131 of the readmission, the feudal electoral bond between Bohemia and the Reich gradually deteriorated, and after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 it could be easily annulled.24 * After the peculiar, basically non-conflictual, and very loose union of Bohe- mia and the Reich in the early modern era had come to an end at the beginning of the nineteenth century, there remained only a question for historians. How would this issue be interpreted from the historical perspective, and to what extent would the growing national incompatibilities between the Czechs and the Germans be reflected in it?25 Over several decades, the attitude of the Czechs towards the fallen Reich remained rather indifferent: it belonged to the past, and the contemporary Napoleonic wars and new stabilization of the Austrian Empire in an absolutist spirit were more important. The issue, however, came into prominence as soon as the Habsburg Monarchy found itself in a crisis and when there appeared the possibility of the revival of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation on a modernized, truly national model. The revolution of 1848 and the efforts to unify Germany that presupposed the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy and the incorporation of the Bohe- mian lands into the new European power all meant that the Czechs might get lost in a vast German sea as a totally marginal factor. Thus the Czech national programme that counted on the further existence of the multi- national Austrian Monarchy definitely clashed with the concept of the renewal of the Reich. František Palacký (1798–1876), the official Bohemian historiographer as well as the most prominent representative of Czech liberal politics, wrote a letter of rejection to the Parliament in Frankfurt, which became the pillar of Czech political thought for decades to come. It was based on a protest against participation in the German unificatory programme, along with a rejection, or at least a significant weakening of the constitutional roots and historical relationships between Bohemia and the Old Reich.26

24 Bohuslav Rieger, ‘Příspěvek k dějinám českého kurfiřtství a arcičíšnictví’, in his Drobné spisy, vol. 1 (Prague, 1914), 248–9; Veselý, ‘K otázce lenního vztahu’, 79–94, 106–10. 25 On this issue see also Jaroslav Pánek, ‘Der tschechische Blick auf die Reichsgeschichte und die spezifische Stellung des böhmischen Staates’, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa- Forschung, 53 (2004), 373–90. 26 Jiří Kořalka, František Palacký, 1798–1876. Životopis (Prague, 1998), with an exhaustive bibliography; Karolina Adamová, ‘Idea federalismu v politice Františka Palackého’, in 132 jaroslav pánek

From this point onwards there appeared efforts to give a positive spin to the very term ‘Reich’ for the Czech public. In the first Czech encyclopaedia—the volume of the Slovník naučný (1818–1903) issued by František Ladislav Rieger in 1866—the Holy Roman Empire was definitely described as the ‘German Empire’ or the ‘Former German Empire’ that was located to the west of the Bohemian frontier before its dissolution. This state had nothing in common with Bohemia, unlike Austria, which had officially formed one of the imperial regions—the ‘Österreichischer Reichskreis’.27 It was important that in the mid-1860s the Czechs viewed the early modern Reich in a generally positive way—in their opinion it had been ‘powerful and celebrated’; it was a territory where the great German culture flourished.28 That was a non-confrontational attitude which clearly stressed that the Altes Reich was a very important but foreign country. This attitude started to change rapidly under the influence of the expansion of Prussia, after the partial occupation of Bohemia during the Austro-Prussian War and especially under the impact of the unification of Germany in 1871.29 The issue of the relationship between the Bohemian state and the Holy Roman Empire became prominent again in the period of the struggles over state law (státní právo, Staatsrecht) and the constitution, when a new form of government for the Habsburg Monarchy was sought; at that time there also appeared the theoretical possibility of the federalization of Cisleithania. In this turmoil of constitutional and political problems the relationship between the lands of the Bohemian crown and the Holy Roman Empire found a new meaning. The law historian Josef Kalousek (1838–1915) answered the interests of the whole of Czech society and in his work České státní právo (Bohe- mian State Law), published in the very year 1871 (and in its final form in 1892), he offered a detailed account of the ‘history of the legal relationship between the Bohemian state and the Roman-German Empire’.30 The core of Kalousek’s account of ‘constitutional independence’ is a rather well- founded statement that in the late Middle Ages and the early modern

František Šmahel and Eva Doležalová (ed.), František Palacký, 1798–1998. Dějiny a dnešek (Prague, 1999), 231–40. 27 Slovník naučný, ed. František L. Rieger, vol. 5 (Prague, 1866), 715–20; quoted at 715, 718 and 720. 28 Slovník naučný, vol. 6 (Prague, 1867), col. 722. 29 On the general change of political attitudes: Jan Křen, Konfliktní společenství. Češi a Němci, 1780–1918 (Prague, 1990), 165–73. 30 Kalousek, České státní právo, 1–67. On the origin of Kalousek’s interpretation: Otakar Josek, Život a dílo Josefa Kalouska (Prague, 1922), 92–147. bohemia and the empire: acceptance and rejection 133 era there existed only a special feudal relationship between the Bohe- mian king and the Roman-German emperor, which was advantageous for Bohemia. However, during that period—in contrast to the German territorial states and also to the Austrian lands—Bohemia and Moravia were absolutely independent of the Reich. This fact was reflected in legislation, justice and territorial administration. Totally independent of the Reich were also tax and military issues, which remained unchanged even after the readmission in 1708 that had to ensure military help to the Bohe- mian lands through the form of an international agreement.31 According to Kalousek, Bohemia had full sovereignty, and expressly it was itself a ‘Bohemian Empire’,32 which meant it was an equal partner among Euro- pean countries. A similar approach appeared in other interpretations of the Holy Roman Empire and of the relations of Bohemia to it. The shifts of ideas typically came to a head not only as the result of the fear of a strong Germany, but also under the impact of the general degradation of the relationships between the Czechs and Germans in Bohemia. A decisive statement in the creation of a general view of the Reich was published in the large encyclopaedia published by the Otto press, Ottův slovník naučný (1888–1908), which was accepted as a highly authoritative source of information about matters Czech during the whole twentieth century.33 The encyclopaedia did not intend to be neutral, and it criticized the Holy Roman Empire openly. The historian František Hýbl (1875–1929), an author of famous high-school books, interpreted the whole existence of the Reich (962–1806) in terms of an identification with Germany and with the German-speaking environment. He presented it as historically opposed to its eastern neighbours, the Bohemian, Polish and Hungarian ‘empires’, and, in contrast with them, as a scattered territory shaken by internal conflicts.34 The early modern Altes Reich appeared as an ethically German territory, with the burden of ‘a deep decline, total dissolution, a cumbersome organization and a large financial deficiency’, etc. As early as the eighteenth century the declining ‘German Reich as a whole had neither power nor respect’, or in other words: ‘Germany was politically,

31 Kalousek, České státní právo, 59–62. 32 Ibid., 168. 33 Ottův slovník naučný. Illustrovaná encyklopaedie obecných vědomostí (28 vols, Prague, 1888–1908). 34 Ottův slovník naučný, vol. 18 (Prague, 1902), 157–66; vol. 21 (Prague, 1904), 822. 134 jaroslav pánek economically and morally on the rocks.’35 Although this explanation admitted that the enlightenment period brought the advancement of Prussia and a certain level of cultural development, the whole picture of the history of the Reich remained unequivocally dark. The Holy Roman Empire was an anachronism long before its end. The text, illustrated by emotive pictures of German decay, presented the Reich as an incongruous entity, full of chaos and dissolution that even by its ethnic (and language) delimitation did not have much in common with its Slavonic neighbour states. The authors of the encyclopaedia did not feel the need to seek for the reasons for the fact that the seemingly dysfunctional union of states managed to survive till the early nineteenth century. They saw a different question: What can we expect from contemporary Germany, unified by the Hohenzollerns? This issue was addressed by another contributor to the encyclopaedia—the publicist and specialist in modern political history, Adolf Srb (1850–1933). He analysed the rule of William II and concluded that its aim was ‘the fulfilment of the Emper- or’s wish to create the dominant state in world politics by means of the German Reich’. But those who rejected the new power considered Srb’s final conclusion about the power of Wilhelmian imperialism rather hope- ful: ‘The German Reich did not reach the strength of which its founders dreamt: everywhere there is no satisfaction with the current conditions.’36 Adolf Srb unintentionally showed the key to understanding his and Hýbl’s interpretation of the history of the Reich. In the early twentieth century Czech authors of important encyclopaedia entries viewed the whole of German history from the point of view of their fears of the imperial policy of the Second Reich, and they then projected these ideas again into their evaluation of the Holy Roman Empire. They presented it to their readers as an item foreign to the Czechs, and from the point of view of European development as an anachronism which was generally undesirable. They connected the real and assumed weaknesses of the early modern Reich and Wilhelmine Germany to such an extent that they could not find a balanced view of the complex development of the Altes Reich. Instead they partially prepared the views which became typical of several following generations of Czech historians and publicists. In the first third of the twentieth century the main theme of the Czech historiography of the early modern era, as far as the relationships between

35 Ibid., xviii. 163–4. 36 Ibid., xviii. 170. bohemia and the empire: acceptance and rejection 135 the Czechs and German-speaking inhabitants of Central Europe were concerned, was the development of the Habsburg Monarchy and the presup- positions of the dissolution of the Bohemian-Austro-Hungarian monarchic union. The relationship to the Reich did not play the decisive role, and therefore a prominent law historian of that time, Jan Kapras (1880–1947), could basically stick to the older concept of Josef Kalousek.37 He, however, made a significant change in the approach to the state forms in the Middle Ages and the early modern era and the terminology used. He did not take into account the original universalistic idea of the Holy Roman Empire and viewed it explicitly as the ‘German Reich’, while the lands of the Bohemian crown were the ‘Bohemian Empire’.38 In this view of law and historical thinking, that did not hesitate to use the term ‘national state’ even in the early Middle Ages,39 the interpretation of the relationship between the two neighbouring states culminated in the late Middle Ages and early modern era as far as their equality and mutual independence is concerned. The national accent found its expression in a work of 1913, and was published significantly on the very threshold of the First World War. Another change in the approach to the early modern Reich appeared in the time of the First Czechoslovak Republic. There are to be found several presentations of the Holy Roman Empire through the prism of the political conditions of the inter-war period. At first, in the 1920s, the dominat- ing view was a projection of the Czech approach to the European order in the sense of the Versailles system, strengthened by the imperfectly hidden wish to have a politically weak great western neighbour. This conformed to the former classification of the Reich as an anachronism in early modern Europe.40 This nevertheless changed after the onslaught of the Nazi regime: as early as the mid-1930s the issue of Germany and the Reich was approached from the point of view of the ‘old tradition of [German] imperialist policy’.41 The emergence of Hitler’s Third Reich elicited a new interpretation of the very idea of the Reich and especially of the Holy Roman Empire that was advanced by a specialist in the history of the state and law, Josef Kliment

37 Jan Kapras, Právní dějiny zemí Koruny české, vol. II/1 (Prague, 1913). 38 Ibid., 115 and 308. 39 Ibid., 5–12. 40 Masarykův slovník naučný. Lidová encyklopedie všeobecných vědomostí, vol. V (Prague, 1931), cols 119–20; vol. VI (Prague, 1932), col. 409. 41 Ottův slovník naučný nové doby, vol. IV/1 (Prague, 1936), 512. 136 jaroslav pánek

(1901–78). According to him for a long time European history witnessed the clashes of the idea of a unified rule over Christianity with the principle of independent states. Of course the ‘Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation’ meant only the titular ownership of a unified empire in ‘German’ hands, while the conditions of European legal development were in fact based on the existence of independent states. There Kliment made a significant and important move when, in contrast to his predecessors—at least in the sense of ideology—he admitted that the Reich’s universalism was valid. According to him, ‘the historical Bohemian state formed an important part of the Roman world empire, but not of Germany.’ It was in Bohemia where ‘the very first idea of defeating world-rulership’ was born, when in the late Middle Ages George of Poděbrady tried to reach an order in Europe ‘on the basis of equal states’. Through the eyes of the inhabitants of Czechoslovakia, existentially threatened by Hitler’s plans to rule over the world, Kliment viewed the early modern Reich as the external framework of the tense Czech–German coexistence, and in his final thesis he significantly stated that the ‘world rule’ represented by the Holy Roman Empire ‘looks simple, but did not prove applicable in the world’.42 A similar line was followed by the largest Czech work on world history, published in the second half of the 1930s and edited by Josef Šusta (1874–1945). In his Dějiny lidstva (History of mankind) Šusta repeatedly expressed his views about the character of the European state system and used the terms belonging to the political thinking of his time.43 He started with the rule of Maximilian I at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and found ‘a corresponding revival of imperialist tendencies’ in Europe which he considered to be the result of the activities of the Habs burg dynasty.44 Although he discussed the issues of the Old Reich and the rule of the Austrian Habsburgs at the turn of the preceding period, he presented this theme in connection with the development of German territory. He did not consider this ‘Germany’ a universal empire, but viewed it only as the western neighbour of Bohemia. The connection between Germany and imperialism therefore became more or less the depiction of fears and expectations existing in 1938 when Šusta’s treatise was published,

42 Ottův slovník naučný nové doby, vol. V/1 (Prague, 1938), col. 652. 43 Josef Šusta (ed.), Dějiny lidstva (6 vols, Prague, 1936–40); an interpretation in Jiří Lach, Josef Šusta a Dějiny lidstva (Olomouc, 2001), 42–65. 44 Josef Šusta, ‘Renesance, reformace a barok’, in Dějiny lidstva, vol. 5 (Prague, 1938), pp. XI–XXXII, quoted at p. XVI. bohemia and the empire: acceptance and rejection 137 rather than a presentation of the real state and developmental possibilities of the Holy Roman Empire in the early sixteenth century.45 This was followed by the period of hegemony of Germany over Central Europe and therefore also of the unilateral German-nationalist interpretation of the history of the Reich, which we owe to the German-speaking historians in the Bohemian lands. The projection of national aspects into the early modern history of Central Europe was vividly represented by Bertold Bretholz (1862–1936), one of the most important representatives of that German historiography. In his four-volume Geschichte Böhmens und Mährens he approached the history of this Central European territory in the basic terms of a national conflict.46 As early as 1924 he expressed this unequivocally in his periodization of the history of the Bohemian lands: the period until 1420 he viewed as ‘Teutonic-German antiquity’, the years 1420–1620 as the ‘Slavonic-Czech Middle Ages’ and the following period until the end of the First World War as the ‘Austrian modern era’.47 In view of the fact that Bretholz approached the ‘Slavonic-Czech Middle Ages’ as the era of the deepest decline, the incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia into the Holy Roman Empire signified according to him not only the reality of the past, but the only correct solution to the Czech–German relationship. This direction of thinking was then spread by Nazi historiography, whose theses were summarized in the school book Stručné dějiny říše (Short history of the Reich) that from 1943 served as the only permitted textbook of history in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.48 The ‘Reich’—the direct predecessor of Hitler’s Third Reich—became the term that summarized the whole history of Central Europe within one single state framework and at the same time it served as an unquestionable symbol of order, economic prosperity and cultural development. In contrast to this the inferior Czech element—the bearer of chaos, decline and foolish protests against German supremacy—after a totally misconceived separate historical existence finally succumbed to the creation of the Protec- torate of Bohemia and Moravia in 1939: ‘The Bohemian lands . . . returned to the womb of the Reich to which they had belonged for a millennium.’49

45 Josef Šusta, ‘Maxmilián I. a Německo jeho doby’, in Dějiny lidstva, v. 103–18, esp. 103, 109. 46 Bertold Bretholz, Geschichte Böhmens und Mährens (4 vols, Reichenberg, 1921–4). 47 Ibid., iv.207. 48 Stručné dějiny říše (Prague, 1943). 49 Ibid., 76. 138 jaroslav pánek

This extremely prejudiced presentation of the Bohemian lands and the superior Reich could only profane the use of the term Reich in the Czech environment. In the post-war period the Bohemian territory still witnessed expressions of nationally extremist tendencies. The relationship between Bohemia and the Reich was newly approached by the leading Czech law historian Václav Vaněček (1905–85). In his university textbook Dějiny státu a práva v Československu (The history of the state and law in Czechoslovakia),50 which he started to prepare as early as the 1950s but which occupied a privileged place in the university education of historians and lawyers until the 1980s, the author combined national emotions with Marxist ideology. He returned to the term ‘Roman Empire’ and guided by ideas about the socio-economic foundations of states, he characterised it as a ‘feudal empire’.51 While for the Middle Ages he accepted the existence of a ‘universal Christian monarchy’, in the early modern era he thought that this entity declined and ‘the threat from Germany itself was not, thankfully, very great at that time’. He classified the early modern Reich as a ‘total anachronism’, which was followed in the nineteenth century by the Ger- man Confederation or, in other words, the ‘ultra-reactionary international union of sovereign princes and cities’, and then in due course by the Third Reich, ‘Hitler’s Germany’.52 This unilateral anti-German approach was complemented by a stress on the sovereign position of the Bohemian state and its independence from the Reich. From the viewpoint of mutual national interest Vaněček evaluated also the evidence for the feudal subordination of Bohemia to the Reich and he strictly rejected the conclusions contained in the famous commentaries of 1627 by the German lawyer Melchior Goldast von Haim- insfeld (1578–1635).53 According to Vaněček, Goldast’s treatise ‘puzzled the European public for several centuries and its impact is to be found in our country even nowadays.’54 The Marxist law historian argued with his ancient predecessor and used the authority of the Czech humanist scholar

50 Václav Vaněček, Dějiny státu a práva v Československu. Nástin (Prague, 1961); id., Dějiny státu a práva v Československu (Prague, 1964); quoted from 2nd, revised edn, Prague, 1970; a 3rd edn appeared in 1976. 51 Vaněček, Dějiny státu a práva (1970), 233, 516. 52 Ibid., 236. 53 Melchior Goldast, Commentarii de regni Bohemiae, incorporatarumque provinciarum juribus ac privilegiis, nec non de hereditaria successione regiae Bohemorum familiae, in libros VI divisi (Francfurt a.M.1627); reedn, ed. Johann H. Schminck (2 vols, Frankfurt a.M.1719). 54 Vaněček, Dějiny státu a práva, 71. bohemia and the empire: acceptance and rejection 139

Pavel Stránský (1583–1657), who published a treatise on the Bohemian state (Respublica Bohemiae, 1634, or Respublica Bojema, 1643) only seven years after Goldast.55 Stránský was a great Czech patriot of his time; yet in spite of this he acted in a far more reserved way than his follower in the twentieth century. Stránský, too, was sure of the liberty and independence of Bohemia, but he was willing to quote the contradictory arguments of his rival. His well-balanced presentation is based on a purposeful comparison with other European states, and he underlined that the political and constitutional position of Bohemia was quite close to the relationship of Denmark, Poland or Hungary to the Holy Roman Empire.56 Even though he could not suspect this, during the dramatic circumstances of the Thirty Years War he showed a significantly higher level of objectivity than his Marxist follower during the time of the Cold War. While historians approached the relationship of Bohemia to the early modern Holy Roman Empire only from time to time,57 a different situation is visible in the sphere of syntheses of legal history. As early as in late 1980s this branch was liberated from unilateral rejection thanks to its prominent representative Karel Malý (b. 1930). Malý interpreted the early modern ‘Roman Reich’ as a ‘fictitious entity’ (having also been a ‘secular organization of all Christian states’) whose relation to the Bohemian state was on the whole an international one; it did not have any claims upon it and did not change the sovereign position of Bohemian rulers. He also classified the readmission of 1708 as a mere expedient of Habsburg policy to strengthen claims on the imperial crown.58 From the mid-1960s, there appeared a certain revaluation of nationalistic attitudes in an encyclopaedic work which tried to define the term ‘Reich’ and the Czechs’ relation to it. For all its flaws it must be admitted that in contrast to the inter-war predecessors these German and Reich issues are expounded more thoughtfully there. The ‘Holy Roman Empire (of the German Nation)’ is viewed as a distinct union of ethnically German

55 Paulus Stransky, Respublica Bohemiae (Leiden, 1634); 2nd edition as Respublica Bojema (Leiden, 1643); quoted from Respublica Bojema (Amsterdam, 1713). 56 Stransky, Respublica Bojema, 148. 57 Janáček, České dějiny. Doba předbělohorská 1526–1547; Pánek, ‘Zápas o vedení české stavovské obce’; id., ‘Politický systém předbělohorského českého státu’, Folia Historica Bohemica, 11 (1987), 41–101; idem, ‘Das politische System des böhmischen Staates im ersten Jahrhundert der habsburgischen Herrschaft, 1526–1620’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Öster reichische Geschichtsforschung, 97 (1989), 53–82. 58 Karel Malý and Florián Sivák, Dějiny státu a práva v Československu, vol. I (Prague, 1988), 57; the same text in a more recent synthesis: Karel Malý et al., Dějiny českého a československého práva do roku 1945 (Prague, 1999), 35. 140 jaroslav pánek as well as of several non-German territories in the Middle Ages and early modern Era; that term is clearly distinguished from the ‘German Reich’ that appeared as a unified state in the second half of the nineteenth century.59 This meant a significant change in terms of a chronological and qualitative differentiation between the Altes Reich and the modern Ger man state. Nevertheless it was still difficult to clarify the relationship between the Holy Roman Empire and Bohemia. As late as the 1980s we encounter the characterization of the Reich as a wide ‘supranational feudal union of countries, accepting a symbolic sovereign position of the Roman emperor’.60 The relationship between the Bohemian state and the Reich was interpreted as a personal feudal bond, based only on the offices of the Bohemian king as the Reich’s Erzschenk and elector.61 The encyclopaedias from the 1990s were liberated from the termino- logical ballast of the preceding decades, but from the objective viewpoint they did not bring a lot of new findings.62 What was important was the more accurate description of the Roman-German Reich as a vast territory, reaching from Benelux to the Bohemian lands, i.e. definitely including the latter. An original lexicon of German history, published by three Czech historians in 2000,63 presented the Holy Roman Empire as a conglomerate of territories that in relation to Bohemia did not play any state-forming role (only periodic military conflicts or political unions were important there); in the early modern period the Bohemian lands did not form any part of the territory of the Reich. The three authors used the terms ‘Reich’, ‘Roman-German Reich’ and ‘Holy Roman Empire’ equally, which reflects the neutral use of these terms in contemporary Czech literature.64 In the late twentieth century, even before the change of political regime and of orientation in the foreign policy of the country, Czech scholarly work liberated itself from nationally- or ideologically-based rejections of the Holy Roman Empire as well as from teleological linkage of it with the Second and Third Reichs. By that time there was no pressure coming from the current politics in the background; instead it was a period which saw the loss of any direct connection between state-political interests and the

59 Příruční slovník naučný, vol. III (Prague, 1966), 306. 60 Ibid., 309; ibid., vol. IV (Prague, 1967), 317. 61 Ibid., iv. 317. 62 Všeobecná encyklopedie ve čtyřech svazcích, vol. IV (Prague, 1998), 25; Všeobecná encyklopedie Universum, vol. VI (Prague, 2001), 376–80; ibid., vol. IX (Prague, 2001), 201. 63 Antonín Kostlán, Dagmar Moravcová and Vratislav Vaníček, Encyklopedie dějin Německa (Prague, 2000). 64 Ibid., 121–30, 346–51. bohemia and the empire: acceptance and rejection 141 interpretation of Czech history. Scholarly work on the early modern era finally found an independent position in the study of the Holy Roman Empire and stopped associating this theme with the issue of the continuity of the Bohemian state. Czech historiography reached the stage when it was able to deliver itself from one of the burdens of the past and open a space to more open-minded study of the history of the international legal and supra-state structures of Central Europe.

Bohemia, Silesia and the Empire: Negotiating Princely Dignity on the Eastern Periphery

Petr Matˇa

Despite their geographical proximity and a four-hundred-year coexistence within the framework of a composite state, that of the Bohemian crown and since 1526 that of the Habsburg Monarchy in addition,1 Bohemia and Sile- sia presented markedly divergent ‘noble landscapes’, or Adelslandschaften. The differences included numbers, titles, property concentration, ethno- linguistic patterns and confessional identification and they were rooted deep in history.2 Around 1500, Silesia—a loosely integrated formation of territories that were one after another brought under the sovereignty of the Bohemian crown under Charles IV—comprised about fourteen duchies. Not all of them were territorially consolidated and the appurtenance of some of them was a matter of contestation between Silesia and Mora- via. Only a few duchies however (Breslau, Schweidnitz-Jauer and, with reservations, Glogau) were then in the direct and permanent possession of the Bohemian kings who aspired to be the suzereigns (Oberherzoge) of Silesia. Other duchies were possessed by one ecclesiastical prince (the bishop of Breslau as duke of Neiße) and by younger branches of the one- time royal dynasties of Piast and Přemysl. In the second half of the fifteenth century, other central-European dynasties (Poděbrad, Jagiellon, Hunyadi and Wettin) joined them, as Silesia became the centre of conflict between the Bohemian and Hungarian kings. Insofar as Silesia can be called at this time a Land, it was clearly a Land that belonged to these princes. The appellation ‘princes and estates’ (Fürsten und Stände) for the

1 For the Habsburg Monarchy, R.J.W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy 1550–1700. An Interpretation (Oxford, 1979), and the large synthesis by Thomas Winkel- bauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht. Länder und Untertanen des Hauses Habsburg im konfessionellen Zeitalter (2 vols, Vienna, 2003), remain indispensable. For the Bohemian composite state: Joachim Bahlcke, Regionalismus und Staatsintegration im Widerstreit. Die Länder der Böhmischen Krone im ersten Jahrhundert der Habsburgerherrschaft (1526–1619) (Munich, 1994). 2 Petr Matˇa, ‘Der Adel Böhmens und Schlesiens in der Frühen Neuzeit in verglei chender und beziehungsgeschichtlicher Perspektive’, in Jan Harasimowicz and Matthias Weber (ed.), Adel in Schlesien. Vol. I: Herrschaft—Kultur—Selbstdarstellung (Munich, 2010), 223–62. 144 petr maŤa representation of the all-Silesian meeting of the estates, the Fürstentag, speaks for itself.3 In Bohemia, on the other hand, the situation was much different around 1500, for there were absolutely no princes at all. In the territorially homogeneous heartland of the Bohemian crown no autonomous districts emerged, which could be compared with the Silesian duchies (the county of Glatz was an exception). The Bohemian nobility, which fought in the Hussite wars (1419–34) for riches and a prominent position in the land, was composed of an estate of lords or barons (páni) and an estate of knights (rytíři). It developed its own system of ranks where foreign titles—such as count or prince—were not recognised as a basis for distinction.4 By the time of the Silesian annexation by Prussia in 1740–1 many things were already different. In Silesia, there remained only four secular princes (leaving aside Teschen, in the possession of Maria Theresa’s husband).5 Moreover, these families did not descend from the one-time Silesian dynasties and all obtained their first foothold in Silesia only in the seventeenth century. Most of them resided outside Silesia, only Württemberg- Weiltingen since 1648 had established here their permanent residence as dukes of Oels. Despite a lively tradition that recalled the Piast dukes as bearer of prosperity, independency and Protestantism,6 Silesia lacked princes by 1740. In Bohemia on the other hand, where once princely titles were alien, there were at the same time no fewer than twelve great secular landowners with this rank: Auersperg, the margrave of Baden, Dietrichstein, Fürsten-

3 Hermann Aubin et al. (ed.), Geschichte Schlesiens. Vol. I: Von der Urzeit bis zum Jahre 1526 (3rd edn., Stuttgart, 1961); Norbert Conrads (ed.), Deutsche Geschichte im Osten Europas. Schlesien (Berlin, 1994). A comprehensive bibliography on the Silesian princes and nobility has been collected by Joachim Bahlcke and Wojciech Mrozowicz (ed.), Adel in Schlesien. Vol. II: Repertorium. Forschungsperspektiven—Quellenkunde—Bibliographie (Munich, 2010). 4 Josef Petráň, ‘Skladba pohusitské aristokracie v Čechách’, Acta Universitatis Caroli- nae, Philosophica et Historica, 1, Studia historica, 14 (1976), 9–80; Jaroslav Mezník, ‘Česká a moravská šlechta ve 14. a 15. století’, Sborník historický, 37 (1990), 7–35; Petr Matˇa, Svět české aristokracie, 1500–1700 (Prague, 2004). 5 Norbert Conrads, ‘Der Übergang des Fürstentums Teschen an das Haus Lothringen 1722’, Oberschlesisches Jahrbuch, 1 (1985), 1–15; Renate Zedinger, ‘Betrachtungen zu den „Schlesischen Interessen“ des Herzogs von Lothringen und späteren Kaisers Franz I. (1708– 1765)’, Slezský sborník, 97 (1999), 241–50. 6 Joachim Bahlcke, ‘Deutsche Kultur mit polnischen Traditionen. Die Piastenherzöge Schlesiens in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Matthias Weber (ed.), Deutschlands Osten—Polens Westen. Vergleichende Studien zur geschichtlichen Landeskunde (Frankfurt a. M. etc., 2001), 83–112; Maximilian Eiden, Das Nachleben der schlesischen Piasten. Dynastische Tradition und moderne Erinnerungskultur vom 17. bis 20. Jahrhundert (Cologne etc., 2012). bohemia, silesia and the empire 145 berg, Lamberg, Liechtenstein, Lobkowitz, Löwenstein-Wertheim, Picco- lomini, Sachsen-Lauenburg, Schwarzenberg and Trautson.7 In this way, Bohemia became a land with a noteworthy density of princely possessions indeed, even when these princes did not built up any autonomous principalities in Bohemia (with the exception of Wallenstein’s ephemeral duchy of Frýdlant/Friedland in 1624–34 and the titular duchy of Český Krumlov/ Krumau created in 1628 for the Eggenbergs and renewed in 1723 for the Schwarzenbergs).8 The twelve princes originated partly from the native aristocratic families of Bohemia (Lobkowitz) and neighbouring Moravia (Liechtenstein), partly from the Austrian Erblande (Auersperg, Dietrich- stein, Lamberg, Trautson), partly they were members of old princely houses of the Holy Roman Empire (Sachsen-Lauenburg, Baden) or houses of imperial nobility (Schwarzenberg, Fürstenberg, Löwenstein-Wertheim). The Piccolomini came from Italy. Auersperg, Lobkowitz and Liechtenstein were dukes in Silesia in addition, and Liechtenstein and Dietrichstein possessed extensive estates in Moravia where they established their princely residences. All twelve were imperial princes and most of them were represented at the Reichstag. All this suggests that the princes were a phenomenon that brings together the history of Bohemia, Silesia and the Holy Roman Empire. The mutual relationship between these three entities has been frequently discussed by historians, mostly in terms of legal history. Given the political brisance of these issues against the background of national movements and the formation of national states in Central Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth century, it is hardly surprising that simplifying and one- sided opinions frequently came into play. While Czech historians often tended to a sort of negatio imperii, thus minimizing the nexus of the Holy

7 Eila Hassenpflug-Elzholz, Böhmen und die böhmischen Stände in der Zeit des beginnenden Zentralismus. Eine Strukturanalyse der böhmischen Adelsnation um die Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts (Munich/Vienna, 1982), 104–7. I slightly modified her overview regarding the year 1741 because the property of the dukes of Bavaria still belonged to Sachsen-Lauenburg in 1740 and Savoy-Carignano needs to be subsumed under Liechtenstein though the pro- prietress was widow of a prince of Savoy-Carignano. Some other princely families with landed property in Bohemia died out before 1740, such as Eggenberg, Buquoy (primogeniture) and another branch of the Dietrichsteins. 8 Jiří Záloha, ‘Ke vzniku někdejšího českokrumlovského vévodství’, Jihočeský sborník historický, 40 (1971), 153–6; Marek Starý, Frýdlantské vévodství a jeho státoprávní postavení v rámci České koruny’, in Karel Malý and Ladislav Soukup (ed.), Vývoj české ústavnosti v letech 1618–1918 (Prague, 2006), 135–57. The secundogeniture of the Liechtensteins created a titular principality in Moravia: Thomas Winkelbauer, Fürst und Fürstendiener. Gundaker von Liechtenstein, ein österreichischer Aristokrat des konfessionellen Zeitalters (Vienna- Munich, 1999), 338–53. 146 petr maŤa

Roman Empire and the territories under the sovereignty of the king of Bohemia, their German counterparts often displayed a contrasting tendency to emphasize the continuing dependence of these territories on the Empire.9 Beyond ethnic and geopolitical fears of the age of nationalism, however, the modern concept of state based on sovereignity and territorial- ity stamped the debate. Consequently, many historians were fascinated by the question whether, and until when, the kingdom of Bohemia and its dependencies formed a true part of the Holy Roman Empire. Even recently, a leading Czech historian revived this debate in reaction to the recent German discussion by claiming that the Bohemian composite state did not form part of the Holy Roman Empire in the sixteenth century any more, although it did, he argued, later join the Empire again.10 This somewhat radical statement is not without logic indeed, given the unique position of Bohemia as both a proclaimed ‘Sacri imperii membrum nobile’ and a more or less autonomous state with no real duties towards the Reich. Furthermore, this paradoxical nexus of the Holy Roman Empire and the Bohemian state significantly loosened after the late Middle Ages. In the second half of the fifteenth century, an interpretation prevailed according to which the imperial fief of the Bohemian king consisted solely of the electorate, the office of Erzschenk and some feudal territories of the Empire, whose effective number and names were not clearly specified, but which did not include the regnum itself.11 Bohemia and its dependencies did not participate in the administrative ‘Verdichtung’ of the Empire, whose institutions never achieved any competence there, and both the Bohemian estates and the Habsburgs occasionally asserted the Bohe- mian state’s independency of the Empire. (The second part of the above argument, on the other hand, namely that this state of affairs substantially changed later, appears less tenable: at the legal and administrative

9 The various positions are discussed by Alexander Begert, Böhmen, die böhmische Kur und das Reich vom Hochmittelalter bis zum Ende des Alten Reiches. Studien zur Kurwürde und zur staatsrechtlichen Stellung Böhmens (Husum, 2003). 10 Petr Vorel, Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české. Vol. VII: 1526–1618 (Prague/Litomyšl, 2005), 81–7, at 83, 86. More balanced is id., Říšské sněmy a jejich vliv na vývoj zemí Koruny české v letech 1526–1618 (Pardubice, 2005). 11 It remained debatable whether the Nebenländer, fiefs of the Bohemian crown, constituted at the same time imperial Afterlehen: Matthias Weber, Das Verhältnis Schlesiens zum Alten Reich in der frühen Neuzeit (Cologne etc., 1992), 46–88, and cf. the critical comments by Marian J. Ptak, ‘Schlesien und seine Beziehungen zu Polen, Böhmen und dem Reich’, in Dietmar Willoweit and Hans Lemberg (ed.), Reiche und Territorien in Ostmitteleuropa. Historische Beziehungen und politische Herrschaftslegitimation (Munich, 2006), 35–50. bohemia, silesia and the empire 147 level, Bohemia continued to enjoy its far-reaching autonomy vis-a-vis the Empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth century no less than before.)12 The basic problem, however, is the need to express a complex, variable and equivocal nexus, that was never cleared up once and for all and that remained the subject of (sometimes rather esoteric) legal constructions of early modern jurists, by means of the simple category of ‘belonging to’. It is beyond dispute that both Bohemia and Silesia (as its dependency) found themselves on the periphery of the Holy Roman Empire. At the same time, their relationship to the Empire in the early modern era was— as were their interactions with it—manifold. It was neither a relationship of unquestionable dependence, nor one of a full and once for ever defined independence. Rather this nexus was the subject of permanent negotiation and redefinition, the more so as the Holy Roman Empire was, as the discussion in recent decades has revealed, itself an elusive, multifaced and developing entity that can be understood in many ways—as a feudal structure, a political system or even (though debatably) a composite state.13 Rather than to deny or to defend the nexus between the Empire and these peripheral territories, it might be productive to examine mutual interactions and the process of negotiation at work. By doing so, we should transcend the level of law, because the Bohemian state’s relationship with the Empire had a pronounced political and social dimension too. In this paper, I attempt to address one important facet of this issue, namely the implication of the profound social, political and confessional transformation of the noble élites in early modern Bohemia and Silesia for the relationship between both lands and the Reich. I attempt to outline how early modern debates about the character and validity of the princely dignity in Bohemia and Silesia energized the debates about the relation to the Empire, and thus how they helped to ‘negotiate’ the Empire on its periphery.14

12 Jaroslav Pánek, ‘Der böhmische Staat und das Reich in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Volker Press (ed.), Alternativen zur Reichsverfassung in der Frühen Neuzeit? (Munich, 1995), 169– 78; Begert, Böhmen. 13 Georg Schmidt, Geschichte des Alten Reiches. Staat und Nation in der Frühen Neuzeit, 1495–1806 (Munich, 1999); Heinz Schilling, ‘Reichs-Staat und frühneuzeitliche Nation der Deutschen oder teilmodernisiertes Reichssystem. Überlegungen zu Charakter und Aktu- alität des Alten Reiches’, Historische Zeitschrift, 272 (2001), 377–95; Wolfgang Reinhard, ‘Frühmoderner Staat und deutsches Monstrum. Die Entstehung des modernen Staates und das Alte Reich’, Zeitschrift für historische Forschung, 29 (2002), 339–57. 14 There is no comprehensive survey of this issue though crucial facets have been examined by Thomas Klein, Jaroslav Pánek, Matthias Weber and Thomas Winkelbauer. 148 petr maŤa

* First of all, it should be noticed that the princes I mentioned initially formed a very heterogeneous group with regard to their ancestry, dynastic links, prerogatives, political orientations and power: a group that was not characterized by any estate unity, corporative coherence or feeling of solidarity. If we factor out ecclesiastical dignitaries, princes who met and interacted on the territory of the Bohemian composite state can be—even if only as ideal types—conceptualized as forming three groups: (1) the Silesian princes who ruled one or more duchies in Silesia; (2) the old imperial princes, who could prove princely tradition going back into the Middle Ages and an immediate (reichsunmittelbar) possession as well as a seat and vote in the Reichstag, and who in addition acquired estates and influence in the Bohemian lands; (3) the landed nobles of Bohemian or Austrian origin, who were raised to the rank of imperial princes by the emperor and were already referred to as the new (imperial) princes by contemporaries. The reality was, however, more complex, since these three kinds of princely dignity did not remain clearly and constantly separated from each other. Rather there were noticeable interactions among them. Beyond the resistance of the old princes—both imperial and Silesian—to any recognition of the newcomers as equal in birth and rank, an overlap between various princely titles was characteristic. The houses of Liech- tenstein, Lobkowitz and Auersperg (and episodically Wallenstein too) represent the most striking cases: originally nobles from hereditary lands, they acquired successively (yet in different order) the rank of imperial prince, a duchy in Silesia, immediate possession and sessio et votum in the Reichstag.15 The convergence of various princely categories resulted on the other hand from the expansion of the old imperial princes from the Empire into Bohemia and Silesia. One case is the margraves of Bran- denburg-Ansbach, who from the beginning of the sixteenth century pursued an ambitious territorial policy in Silesia, much to the dislike of the Habsburgs who succeeded in dislodging them only after 1620.16 Other

I owe much to their texts. Facts and dates have been encyclopedically summarized by Jan Županič et al. (comp.), Encyklopedie knížecích rodů zemí koruny české (Prague, 2001). 15 Volker Press and Dietmar Willoweit (ed.), Liechtenstein—Fürstliches Haus und staatliche Ordnung. Geschichtliche Grundlagen und moderne Perspektiven (Munich/Vienna, 1987); Stanislav Kasík et al., Lobkowiczové. Dějiny a genealogie rodu (České Budějovice, 2002); Miha Preinfalk, Auersperg. Geschichte einer europäischen Familie (Graz/Stuttgart, 2006). 16 Radek Fukala, Hohenzollernové v evropské politice 16. století. Mezi Ansbachem, Krnovem a Královcem (Prague, 2005); id., Jan Jiří Krnovský. Stavovské povstání a zápas s Habsburky (České Budějovice, 2005). bohemia, silesia and the empire 149 examples include Sachsen-Lauenburg and the margraves of Baden who, on the basis of military service to the emperor and through purchases and marriages with wealthy heiresses from the native high nobility, expanded profitable landed estates in Bohemia or even settled in that country in the seventeenth century.17 A marriage of convenience brought other princely families from the Reich to Bohemia in the eighteenth century such as Fürstenberg and the dukes of Bavaria or Savoy-Carignano. As a result of a marriage with Anna Maria Francisca Sachsen-Lauenburg, Gian Gastone Medici, the last scion of his house, dwelled in Bohemia from 1698 to 1708, not without some cultural impact.18 All this was, however, not simply a question of hierarchy and social distinction. The change in Silesia to a land with few princes and in Bohemia to one with many reflected a profound transformation which both lands and their noble élites experienced under Habsburg rule from 1526 onward. The focus on princes in this paper should highlight merely one important aspect of this rather complex history. First of all, we should spend few words on the relationship between the high nobilities in Bohemia and Silesia in the fifteenth century, when a noticeable loosening of the Bohe- mian composite state occurred as a result of the Hussite wars. The relationship between the Silesian Herzöge and the Bohemian páni was never easy, because each group perceived itself as superior to the other: the Silesian princes by virtue of their princely prerogatives and their origin from royal houses, the Bohemian lords as representatives of the Bohemian

17 Anna Maria Renner, Sibylla Augusta Markgräfin von Baden. Die Geschichte eines denkwürdigen Lebens (3rd edn, Karlsruhe, 1976); Josef Tlapák, ‘Výnosy českých panství bavorských vévodů v létech 1720–53’, Vědecké práce zemědělského muzea, 28 (1989–90), 135–69; Hans-Georg Kaack, ‘Die Herzöge Julius Heinrich und Franz Albrecht als kaiserliche Bestallte seit 1617. Die Askanier in Böhmen’, in Eckardt Opitz (ed.), Krieg und Frieden im Herzogtum Lauenburg und in seinen Nachbarterritorien vom Mittelalter bis zum Ende des Kalten Krieges (Bochum, 2000), 139–73; Petr Matˇa, ‘Wandlungen des böhmischen Adels im 17. Jahrhundert und der Aufstieg des Hauses Sachsen-Lauenburg in Böhmen’, in Michael Wenger and Annemarie Röder (ed.), Barockes Erbe. Markgräfin Sibylla Augusta von Baden- Baden und ihre böhmische Heimat (Stuttgart, 2010), 4–27. 18 Alberto Bruschi, Anna Maria Francesca. Una Principessa boema . . . una Fiorentina mancata (Florence, 1995); Petr Matˇa, ‘Principessa Boema. Vyslanec Marco Martelli o Anně Marii Františce Toskánské a jejím českém zázemí’, Souvislosti 13/3–4 (2002), 93–8; Ales- sandro Catalano, ‘Dal servizio di principi e granduchi alla ricerca storica. Pietro Domenico Bartoloni da Empoli e le Istorie de’duchi e re di Boemia’, Studi Slavistici, 8 (2011), 281–98; Martin Valášek, ‘Gramatik Václav Jandit a Gian Gastone’, in Vilém Herold and Jaroslav Pánek (ed.), Baroko v Itálii—baroko v Čechách. Setkávání osobností, idejí a uměleckých forem (Prague, 2003), 469–78; Jan F. Pavlíček, ‘Gian Gastone de’ Medici e la sua corte in Boemia. Il problema della lunga permanenza all’estero’, in Giorgio Cadorini and Jiří Špička (ed.), Humanitas latina in Bohemis (Kolín/Treviso, 2007), 97–115. 150 petr maŤa crown to which the princes were only vassals.19 Beyond this latent tension, both ruling élites were bound together by occasional marriage alliances, even if such intermarriage remained only intermittent and can hardly be compared to the frequent intermarriage within the Bohemian- Moravian nobility. In the fifteenth century, just nine marriages between the Bohemian (four) and Moravian (five) barons on the one side and the Silesian princes from the houses of Piast and Přemysl on the other side can be identified.20 Moreover, these occasional alliances did not result in a further integration of both noble societies. The acquisition of estates over the border remained rare for instance (the comparison with a much closer affinity between Bohemians and Moravians is telling again). The Silesian princes acquired no property in Bohemia and the few attempts of Bohemian magnates to gain property in Silesia (namely under the Jag- iellon kings, 1471–1526) usually—with one significant exception—did not last more than a few years or decades.21 There were certainly many causes for this, but the very diverse composition of the group and their conflicting claims of superiority hampered any deeper integration. Thus it was an exception when the ‘Hussite king’ George of Poděbrady (†1471), himself descending from Bohemian barons, attempted to establish a princely dynasty with possessions in both lands. As king of Bohemia, he enfeoffed his sons, heirs of a large domain in eastern Bohemia, with the border territory of Glatz, that he had first raised to the status of county in 1459, and subsequently with the duchies of Münsterberg and Troppau in Silesia. But even this sporadic attempt to create a princely house with property in Bohemia and Silesia failed in the long run. No doubt, the Poděbrads, alias dukes of Münsterberg, succeeded in entering the society of the Silesian princes: they quickly converted back to the Roman faith,

19 Joachim Bahlcke, ‘Das Herzogtum Schlesien im politischen System der Böhmischen Krone’, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, 44 (1995), 27–55. The information on ‘die älteste böhmische Herrenstandsordnung vom Jahre 1501’ that allegedly included Silesian princes and guaranteed them the precedence over Bohemian barons till 1627 (p. 38), is however wrong: no such arrangement ever existed. This mistake was diffused through Roman von Procházka, ‘Die staatsrechtliche Stellung und kulturpolitische Bedeutung des historischen böhmischen Herrenstandes’, Bohemia, 22 (1981), 112–22. 20 I factor out additional six marriages of Poděbrads as dukes of Münsterberg with Piasts (see below). Kazimierz Jasiński, Rodowód Piastów Śląskich (3 vols, Wrocław, 1973–7); Marek Starý, ‘Dynastická spojení opavských Přemyslovců s českou a moravskou šlechtou’, Genealogické a heraldické listy, 18 (1998), 28–51; Jaroslav Honc, ‘Kněžny a knížata slezská a jejich královští a panští partneři z českých zemí, 1175–1679’, Genealogické a heraldické listy, 24/3–4 (2004), 32–84. Silesian princes usually intermarried among themselves or with princely houses from the Empire. 21 Maťa, Svět, 137–40. bohemia, silesia and the empire 151 they concluded six marriages with Silesian princes between 1474 and 1488, and they were able to compensate the loss of Troppau in 1485 by acquisition of the duchy of Oels in 1495. On the other hand, they were forced to sell off their extensive property in Bohemia within a few decades. By 1501, they had sold even their symbolic center—the county of Glatz.22 Thus even the dukes of Münsterberg, who could build upon the special status of a king’s descendants, appeared to be unable to retain their position as both Bohemian lords and Silesian princes. One step in the process of integration of Poděbrads among the Silesian princes deserves attention: Three sons of the ‘Hussite king’ were first raised to the dignity of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire (‘in veros principes sacri Romani imperii et duces in Munsterberg’), with the title of counts of Glatz and dukes of Münsterberg, by Frederick III between 1459 and 1462.23 Thus the ennoblement by an emperor could qualify a Bohemian baronial family to enter the group of Silesian princes, who, as vassals of the king of Bohemia, not only had no direct feudal relation to the emperor, but were no Reichsfürsten at all.24 Instead they derived their princely title from the Bohemian and Polish royal houses. This specific case was only one of many attempts to claim a certain rank within Bohemia, Silesia or the Holy Roman Empire with the help of a dignity which derived from a system of rank used in another of these three political bodies. The rise of Poděbrads to dukes of Münsterberg helped to energize contacts between Bohemian magnates and Silesian princes for a few decades:

22 Otakar Odložilík, The Hussite King: Bohemia in European Affairs, 1440–71 (New Bruns- wick, N.J., 1965); Stefan Głogowski, Genealogia Podiebradów (Gliwice, 1997); Ondřej Felc- man and Radek Fukala (ed.), Poděbradové. Rod českomoravských pánů, kladských hrabat a slezských knížat (Prague, 2008). 23 Viktorín was sixteen years old when he was created prince in August 1459 by imperial charter. In December 1462, the privilege was extended to both his younger brothers. Colmar Grünhagen and Hermann Markgraf (ed.), Lehns- und Besitzurkunden Schlesiens und seiner einzelnen Fürstenthümer im Mittelalter, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1883), 153–6. In March 1463 finally, the brothers were invested in Prague ‘mit grosser zierheit vnd solennitet’ and received ‘die mantel vnd fürstliche hütte’ from the emperor: František Palacký (ed.), ‘Staří letopisové čeští od roku 1378 do 1527, čili pokračování v kronikách Přibíka Pulkavy a Beneše z Hořovic z rukopisů starých vydané’, in Scriptores rerum bohemicarum, iii (Prague, 1829), 179f.; id. (ed.), ‘Urkundliche Beiträge zur Geschichte Böhmens und seiner Nachbar- länder im Zeitalter Georg’s von Podiebrad, 1450–71’, in Fontes rerum austriacarum. Ser. II, Diplomataria et acta, 20 (Vienna, 1860), 298. 24 Significantly, Johann of Schellenberg/Šelmberk, another Bohemian magnate who acquired a Silesian duchy in 1493, did not use any princely title, though he was enfeoffed with all rights including a seat at the Fürstentag among Silesian princes: Jan Kapras, ‘Staatsrechtliche Verhältnisse des Troppauer Landes im Mittelalter’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kulturgeschichte Österreichisch-Schlesiens, 12 (1917), 1–74, at 66–72. 152 petr maŤa between 1490 and 1530, Bohemian páni concluded eight marriages with Silesian princes, six with Poděbrads and two with Piasts. But the failure of the Poděbrads to retain possessions in both Bohemia and Silesia signalled the continuing distance between both ruling élites. During the first hundred years of Habsburg rule over Bohemia and Silesia, the two groups finally drifted apart and even intermarriage was discontinued: The last alliance between a Bohemian baronial family and the Piasts (the Přemysl dynasty died out in 1521) was concluded in 1540, and even the dukes of Münsterberg turned aside from their former fellows (their last intermarriage took place in 1560). After the outbreak of the German reformation, the Silesian princes, sooner or later espousing Luther’s teaching, sought to strengthen links with the Protestant princes of the Holy Roman Empire in order to participate in their struggle for religious concessions and to escape the centralizing policy that Ferdinand I began to exert in Bohe- mia and its dependencies soon after 1526. This orientation towards the Empire and the struggle for an autonomous dynastic policy were further reinforced by the establishment of the house of Brandenburg-Ansbach in Silesia at the beginning of the sixteenth century. * Under Ferdinand I, the issue of the imperial princes became controversial in both Bohemia and Silesia. However, the attitude of the Habsburg dynasty towards the princely title developed differently in both lands. In Silesia, Ferdinand I and his successors strove to subdue the local princes by narrowing their free space for an independent policy towards the Reich. Significantly, Bohemian magnates, who developed a sence of responsibility for the Bohemian crown during the many interregna of the fifteenth century, willingly co-operated with the king to hamper the centrifugal policy of the Silesian princes. Jan of Pernštejn (1487–1548), a Bohemian- Moravian magnate who got much involved in the issues of Silesia as tutor to the minor duke of Teschen, complained in 1540 in correspondence with another magnate about the Piast duke of Brieg-Liegnitz, who, although a mere feudal prince (kníže lenní) and dependant of the Bohemian crown, struggled to become an imperial prince (kníže říšské) and thus to break his vassalage.25 Supported by the Bohemian nobility, the Habsburg dynasty succesfully stopped the expansion of Brandenburg-Ansbach in Silesia;

25 František Dvorský (ed.), ‘Dopisy pánův Jana a Vojtěcha z Pernštejna z let 1509–1548’, in Archiv český, 20 (Prague, 1902), 1–276, at 100. bohemia, silesia and the empire 153 it gradually wore down the prerogatives of other Silesian princes; and it subordinated the duchies as far as possible directly under the crown. The Silesian princes saw their position steadily erode. This process was accompanied and supported by the biological extinction of the native princely houses which changed the political map of Silesia heavily, much to the benefit of the Silesian nobility without princely dignity that readily filled out the free spaces.26 Nevertheless, the political and social strategy of the Silesian princes to seek recourse in the Holy Roman Empire and to intermarry and assimilate with the imperial princes brought some results too. Although the Piasts never became princes of the Empire and the Poděbrads remained Reichs- fürsten only in title, they managed, despite the disadvantageous conditions after the defeat of the Protestant estates’ uprising in 1620, to achieve an internationalization of the issue of Silesia. In the peace of Westphalia, the free exercise of the Augsburg confession was allowed in the duchies of Silesian Protestant princes and even underpinned by international safeguards—a meassure that substantially helped to preserve Protestant- ism in Silesia.27 In Bohemia by contrast, where the nobles of the territorial estates emerged as the Habsburgs’ main rivals, the dynasty’s struggle to assert its power allowed a different strategy towards princely titles. In the middle of the sixteenth century, after the defeat of the estates’ revolt of 1546–7, the Habsburgs willingly supported Heinrich V of Plauen (1510–54), who descended from a branch of an imperial noble family that had possessed estates in western Bohemia since the fourteenth century and who made a career in the service of Ferdinand I after 1530, by providing him with estates in Vogtland (just to the north-west of Bohemia), making his family branch princely (1548) and granting it precedence over other nobles, contrary to the customs of Bohemia. The imperial princely title was intended to become the basis for distinction in the Kingdom of Bohemia, thus breaking the two-tier model of hierarchy within the noble estates. The emperor’s right of ennoblement threatened to undermine the privileges of

26 Bahlcke, Regionalismus; Norbert Conrads, ‘Regionalismus und Zentralismus im schlesischen Ständestaat’, in Hugo Weczerka (ed.), Stände und Landesherrschaft in Ostmittel europa in der frühen Neuzeit (Marburg, 1995), 159–70; Maťa, ‘Adel’, 231–54. 27 Weber, Verhältnis, 219–80; Christine van Eickels, Rechtliche Grundlagen des Zusam- menlebens von Protestanten und Katholiken in Ober- und Niederschlesien vom Augsburger Religionsfrieden (1555) bis zur Altranstädter Konvention (1707)’, in Thomas Wünsch (ed.), Reformation und Gegenreformation in Oberschlesien. Die Auswirkungen auf Politik, Kunst und Kultur im ostmitteleuropäischen Kontext (Berlin, 1994), 47–68. 154 petr maŤa the estate of lords. At least a part of the Bohemian nobility—mainly those who had been introduced into offices by Ferdinand I—was ready to accept this innovation. From 1549, after it had been sanctioned by the reformed Landesordnung, the estates of Bohemia began to address themselves as not only ‘estates’, but ‘prince and estates’ (kníže a stavové) even in official documents.28 In the long run, however, the attempt failed, firstly in face of the resistance of the major part of the nobility that became manifest after 1554, and secondly because the princes of Plauen quickly lost their power and economic position in Bohemia and died out already in 1572 (the appellation ‘princes and estates’ was abandoned earlier, by 1565).29 The resistance to the legalization of the princely dignity as a basis for distinction in Bohemia was headed by Vilém of Rožmberk (1535–92), a scion of the wealthy family that perceived itself to be particularly jeopardized in its rank. Rožmberks already in the fifteenth century asserted the first place within the nobility of Bohemia. At that time, they developed— partly with the help of falsified privileges—a kind of quasi-princely identity by deriving their origin from the Roman princely family of Orsini and by instituting the right of primogeniture, unusual within the late medieval nobility of Bohemia, without however claiming the princely title. By 1500, or at least before 1544, the Rožmberks had produced another forgery, allegedly from 1341, that sanctioned their claims of superiority over the Silesian dukes by means of a fictive royal grant. The document firstly argued that the Rožmberks descended from ancient princes who had left Rome after its destruction by barbarians. As progeny of ‘Roman princes’, they were ‘older and better’ than the ‘Silesian princes’. Moreover, thus their second argument, as members of the nobility of Bohemia they shared the liberty to elect the king, whereas Silesian princes were merely vassals of the crown.30

28 Sněmy české od léta 1526 až po naši dobu, vols. 1–11, 15 (Prague, 1877–1939), here vols. 2–3. Later, the appellation was changed into ‘princes and estates’, thus resembling the self-definition of the estates of Silesia. The formulation ‘princes, lords, knights, burghers from Prague and other towns’ (knížata, páni, rytířstvo, Pražané i jiná města) was frequent too until the extinction of the princes of Plauen. 29 Berthold Schmidt, Burggraf Heinrich IV. zu Meißen, Oberstkanzler der Krone Böh- men und seine Regierung im Vogtlande (Gera, 1888); Jaroslav Pánek, ‘Zápas o vedení české stavovské obce v polovině 16. století. Knížata z Plavna a Vilém z Rožmberka 1547–1556’, Československý Časopis Historický, 31 (1983), 855–84. 30 Norbert Heermann’s Rosenberg’sche Chronik, ed. Matthäus Klimesch (Prag, 1897), 51–5. Historians usually supposed it was Vilém who produced this forgery in order to under- pin his claims against the princes of Plauen in the 1550s: Jaroslav Pánek, ‘ “Výpověď krále Jana”—odraz politického programu české šlechty z poloviny 16. století’, in Miloslav Polívka bohemia, silesia and the empire 155

These arguments, originally employed against the aspirations of Sile- sian princes (most likely Poděbrads) within the Bohemian crown, were now, in the mid-sixteenth century, turned against the imperial princes of Plauen. Their quarrel with the Rožmberks produced once again a serious discussion about the weight of princely dignity in Bohemia in the past. Arguing that the princes had always enjoyed a prominent position within the ruling élite of Bohemia, the princes of Plauen brought together examples of Silesian princes (namely the dukes of Münsterberg) preceding the Rožmberks on various occasions. Vilém of Rožmberk, on the other hand, argued that Poděbrads had preceded his ancestors not due to their princely title, but as royal sons (synové královští) or royal governors. The princes of Plauen countered by claiming that ‘not only the princes of Münsterberg but also the princes of Görlitz, Teschen and Oppeln’ enjoyed precedence over the Rožmberks.31 Whatever the relationship between the Silesian princes and the Rožmberks, the quarrel ended with a compromise verdict that favoured the latter in the long run. In the following decades, Vilém of Rožmberk continued to foster the prominent position of his family by means of quasi- princely self-presentation, including marriage alliances with the imperial princely houses of Brunswick (1557), Brandenburg (1561) and Baden (1578). While claiming to be equal to princes, however, in accord with his family’s tradition, he insisted upon his merely baronial dignity.32 The sixteenth- century nobility of Bohemia shared the opinion that the systems of rank used in Silesia and the Holy Roman Empire were incompatible with that in Bohemia and could not be mixed. Foreign titles should not be accepted

and Michal Svatoš (ed.), Historia docet. Sborník prací k poctě šedesátých narozenin prof. PhDr. Ivana Hlaváčka, CSc. (Prague, 1992), 341–55. Recently Anna Kubíková, ‘ “Výpověď krále Jana” z jiného úhlu pohledu’, in Sto let od narození profesora Jindřicha Šebánka (Brno, 2000), 129–36, proved that the document existed already in 1544. She suggested it had been produced by 1500. For the claim concerning the Italian princely origin of the family and for its broader context: Petr Matˇa, ‘False Orsini from over the Alps. Negotiating Aristocratic Identity in Central Europe’, in Liesbeth Geevers and Mirella Marini (ed.), Dynastic Identity in Early Modern Europe. Rulers, Aristocrats and the Formation of Identities, 1520–1700 (in the press). 31 Václav Březan, Životy posledních Rožmberků, ed. Jaroslav Pánek (Prague, 1985), 83–110, 122–43, esp. 107, 130, 133, 137f. 32 Jaroslav Pánek, Poslední Rožmberkové—velmoži české renesance (Prague, 1989); id., ‘Der böhmische Vizekönig Wilhelm von Rosenberg und seine deutschen Ehen’, in Sabine Tanz (ed.), Mentalität und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter. Gedenkschrift für Ernst Werner (Frankfurt a.M. etc., 1994), 271–300. A lot of fresh material on the family’s representation has been recently put together in the monumental exhibition catalogue: id. et al. (ed.), Rožmberkové. Rod českých velmožů a jeho cesta dějinami (České Budějovice, 2011). 156 petr maŤa in Bohemia as a basis for an enhanced legal standing, and all princes who settled in Bohemia should conform to the rules of the estate of lords and behave as páni, though the simple usage of the princely title was tolerated. Even when these principles were challenged several times by foreign princes entering Bohemia, the Bohemian nobility asserted its pretensions of rank until the time of Ferdinand II.33 Their setback was all the more severe after the defeat of the Protestant estates’ uprising of 1618–20, when the estates of Bohemia were deprived of most of their privileges, including the right to regulate admission into the noble estate corporations. Soon after Ferdinand II was elected emperor in 1619, he began to assert the right of ennoblement on an unprecedented scale as both emperor (through the imperial chancery) and king of Bohe- mia (through the Bohemian chancery). For the Bohemian nobility, this brought two substantial innovations in addition. Firstly, prestigious foreign titles and dignities, namely the title of count, the address ‘Hoch- and Wohlgeboren’, and the title of prince, were introduced into the local system and they soon perverted it. Secondly, loyal nobles of Bohemia were often granted titles not from the Bohemian but from the imperial chancery, although most of them maintained no direct connection with the Holy Roman Empire. It is not fully clear to what extent this was a deliberate policy of the emperor to pursue an integration of the nobility in the Holy Roman Empire and the hereditary lands, or at least the creation of a social space with compatible systems of rank. A more simple explanation would be that the very idea of expanding the Bohemian system of rank envolved gradually after the first native noblemen had already received foreign titles from the imperial chancery. At that point the Bohemian chancery might have begun to emulate its imperial counterpart by not

33 In 1570, the estates admitted the Polish prince Janusz Ostrogski with a special pro- viso that he was not allowed to use his princely vote and seat in Bohemia: Vladimír Kle- canda, ‘Přijímání cizozemců na sněmu do Čech za obyvatele. Příspěvek k dějinám inkolátu před obnoveným zřízením zemským’, in Sborník prací věnovaných Gustavu Friedrichovi k šedesátým narozeninám (Prague, 1931), 456–67. Later, the princely aspirations of the ex-ruler of Transylvania, Sigismund Báthory, who lived in Bohemia from 1602 until his death, were criticized: Václav Pešák, ‘Sigmund Báthory v Čechách, 1602–13’, in K dějinám československým v období humanismu. Sborník prací věnovaných Janu Bedřichu Novákovi k šedesátým narozeninám, 1872–1932 (Prague, 1932), 441–67, at 446. Marek Starý, ‘Knížata jako členové českého panského stavu v době předbělohorské’, in Acta historico-iuridica Pilsnen- sia 2006. Sborník příspěvků ze setkání pracovníků kateder právních dějin z České a Slovenské republiky (Plzeň, 2007), 99–124, discusses still other cases and offers the most complete overview of princes entering Bohemia before 1618. bohemia, silesia and the empire 157 simply confirming the latter’s ennoblements, but granting higher titles on its own competence.34 Be that as it may, the right of ennoblement became a powerful instrument of a fundamental reconstitution of the Bohemian nobility in the course of the 1620s. The collapse of the autonomous Bohemian system of noble rank unmasked the latent deficiency of the dignity of native barons. In conjunction with the selling off of confiscated rebel properties to nobles loyal to the emperor from all over the Habsburg lands, it provoked a serious social devaluation of the titles of lord and knight.35 This social revolution was perceived as a hurtful injustice even by many of the Catho- lic loyalist nobles who felt threatened in their rank. Some of them soon made an effort to enhance their titular status, as for example Adam of Waldstein (a distant relative of Wallenstein), who applied to the emperor to be raised to the dignity of a prince in 1625. Later he joined two other meritorious aristocrats (Slavata and Martinic, both well-known as victims of the Defenestration in 1618), and together they successfully solicited at least a privilege for a special position in the hierarchy immediately behind the princes and over other counts.36 Only in the course of this profound transformation were princes introduced into the noble society of Bohemia and placed at the top with great landowners such as Eggenberg, Wallenstein, Lobkowitz, Liechtenstein and Dietrichstein (the last two mainly in Moravia, but with a certain portion of their estates in Bohemia as well). Only Karl of Liechtenstein had been made a prince already in 1608 and installed in Silesia as duke of Troppau in 1614, thus pioneering this profound change. Unlike the title of count, princely titles were issued from the imperial chancery exclusively. Thus all these nobles were made not only princes, but princes of the Holy Roman Empire. It might appear paradoxical that precisely Ferdinand II, who so much extended the royal prerogative in the Bohemian and Austrian lands to the disadvantage of the nobility and the territorial estates, was at the same time so generous as to grant such far-reaching privileges to these

34 Anton Gindely, Die Entwickelung des böhmischen Adels und der Inkolatsverhältnisse seit dem 16. Jahrhunderte (Prague, 1886). For ennoblements through the Bohemian chancery see August von Doerr, Der Adel der böhmischen Kronländer. Ein Verzeichnis derjenigen Wappenbriefe und Adelsdiplome, welche in den böhmischen Saalbüchern des Adelsarchives im k. k. Ministerium des Innern in Wien eingetragen sind (Prague, 1900) The issue merits deeper examination. 35 Maťa, Svět, 67–87, 157–65; Tomáš Knoz, Pobělohorské konfiskace. Moravský průběh, středoevropské souvislosti, obecné aspekty (Brno, 2006). 36 Maťa, Svět, 73f. 158 petr maŤa new princes. In fact, some of the privileges—especially those issued for Wallenstein and Liechtenstein—were so broad that they threatened to diminish the sovereign rights of the Habsburg dynasty in future.37 And it is indeed far from clear why Ferdinand II opted for this social policy. Beyond his readiness to reward those who were loyal to him, and beyond the effort to strengthen the Catholic camp and his position by building a loyal noble stratum in the Habsburgs’ sphere of influence, his ambitious policy towards the Holy Roman Empire that crystallized just in the 1620s may have played a role. If the prospects of an augmentation of loyal votes in the Reichstag and in the Silesian Fürstentag and of a reduction in the social prestige of the old princely ruling élites were not the leading concerns, they were without doubt at least part of the calculation. * The result was meagre in the Holy Roman Empire. The old imperial princes behaved towards the new princes with notable social distance and they required possession of an immediate estate in the Holy Roman Empire as a precondition for becoming a member of the Reichsfürstenrat.38 As Thomas Winkelbauer has shown, it was not only the effort to enter the political system of the Reich, but rather the very competition within the group of new princes at the Habsburg court (and consequently the struggle to upgrade their princely status) that provoked the new princes to a time-demanding and costly rush for dwarf territories with immediate status in the Empire (Reichsunmittelbarkeit). This situation once again conjoined the issue of the imperial princely title with that of the princely

37 The ambitions of the Liechtensteins became soon manifest. In the seventeenth century, they repeatedly came into conflict with both royal officials and their Silesian feoffees. In 1627–8 the Liechtensteins quarrelled with the emperor about the ius confiscandi in their duchies Troppau and Jägerndorf. The issue of the establishment of a ducal vicegerency (ius vicariatus instituendi) remained open for decades. Disputes about iura fiscalia were frequent: Josef Zukal, Slezské konfiskace, 1620–30. Pokutování provinilé šlechty v Krnovsku, Opavsku a Osoblažsku po bitvě bělohorské a po vpádu Mansfeldově (Prague, 1916); id., Die Liechtensteinsche Inquisition in den Herzogtümern Troppau und Jägerndorf aus Anlaß der Mansfeldschen Rebellion, 1626–7’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kulturgeschichte Öster- reichisch-Schlesiens, 7 (1912), 1–260; Gottlieb Kürschner, ‘Die fürstlich Liechtenstein’sche Statthalterei im Herzogtume Troppau-Jägerndorf, 18. Dezember 1659 bis 2. April 1661’, ibid., 9 (1914), 62–73; Richard Horna, ‘Návrh zemského zřízení pro Krnovsko z roku 1673. Příspěvek k dějinám recepce římského práva v zemích českých’, Sborník věd právních a státních, 22 (1922), 265–94. 38 Thomas Klein, ‘Die Erhebungen in den weltlichen Reichsfürstenstand, 1550–1806’, Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte, 122 (1986), 137–92; Harry Schlip, ‘Die neuen Fürsten. Zur Erhebung in den Reichsfürstenstand und zur Aufnahme in den Reichsfürstenrat im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’, in Press and Willoweit, Liechtenstein, 249–92. bohemia, silesia and the empire 159 title in Silesia. Some new princes, namely Liechtenstein, Lobkowitz and Auersperg, attempted to raise their qualification for a seat and vote in the Reichstag or to special precedence among their peers by cultivating their status of princes in Silesia.39 In Silesia itself, on the other hand, the emperor managed to counter- balance the remaining old Silesian princes who (with the exception of the Piasts from Teschen) refused to convert or to marry into the new Bohemian-Austrian aristocracy.40 With the help of the newcomers, the influence of the remaining old princes in the diet and the governmen- tal apparatus of Silesia was strictly reduced. After the extinction of the Poděbrads (1647), the Piasts from Teschen (1625/1653) and the Piasts from Liegnitz and Brieg (1675), there remained only one Protestant princely family in Silesia (Württemberg-Weiltingen) that needed a combination of coincidence and the generosity of the Habsburgs to be able to succeed the Poděbrads in the duchy of Oels.41 In 1664, by breaking the privilege of 1609, the Protestant secular princes were deprived of their position in the office of Oberhauptmann (bypassed already in 1629 by a bureaucratic Oberamt). The roles in the government of Silesia that were once reserved to the native princes by privilege or tradition, were increasingly performed either by the prince-bishop of Breslau,42 by the new princes Auersperg, Liechtenstein and Lobkowitz, or by the non-princely nobles such as the loyal Schaff- gotsch family, whose member led the Oberamt in 1719 to 1741 ‘in Erman- gelung eines Fürstlichen Praesidi’.43 Even the role of the commissioners to

39 Winkelbauer, Fürst, 288–337; Weber, Verhältnis, 194–206. 40 Even the isolated marriage of the Catholic Elisabeth Lukretia of Teschen (the heiress of the duchy since 1625), with Gundaker of Liechtenstein (raised to prince in 1623) in 1618 ended in discord and separation. The tolerant duchess even sheltered Protestants in her duchy: Winkelbauer, Fürst, 517–41; Milan Šmerda, ‘Kněžna Alžběta Lukrecie a protirefor- mace na Těšínsku, 1625–53, Těšínsko, 47 (2004), 1–10; 48 (2005), 1–7. 41 Martin Feist, ‘Die Oelser Lehnsübertragung vom Jahre 1648’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Geschichte Schlesiens, 50 (1916), 130–50. 42 Two of them (Friedrich of Hessen-Darmstadt, 1671–82; Franz Ludwig of Pfalz-Neuburg, 1683–1732) descended from old princely families from the Reich. This again underscores the complexity of the issue of princes within the Bohemian crown: Regina Elisabeth Schwerdtfeger, ‘Friedrich von Hessen-Darmstadt. Ein Beitrag zu seinem Persönlichkeitsbild anhand der Quellen im Vatikanischen Archiv’, Archiv für schlesische Kirchengeschichte, 41 (1983), 165–240; Ludwig Petry, ‘Das Haus Neuburg und die Ausläufer der Gegenreforma- tion in Schlesien und in der Pfalz’, in Aus der Enge in die Weite. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kirche und ihres Volkstums (Grünstadt, 1952), 87–106; Kazimierz Orzechowski, ‘Fran- ciszek Ludwig Neuburski—biskup i śląski mąż stanu’, in Krystyn Matwijowski (ed.), Ludzie śląskiego Kościola katolickiego (Wrocław, 1992), 33–8. 43 Kazimierz Orzechowski, ‘Obsadzanie generalnego starostwa na Śląsku, zwłaszcza po wojnie trzydziestoletniej’, Acta Universitatis Wratislawiensis, Przegląd Prawa i Administracji, 1 160 petr maŤa the annual Fürstentag began to be performed exclusively (with two exceptions only) by the new Catholic princes after 1704, though their involvement in the administration of Silesia was otherwise slight.44 The inflation of titles in Bohemia which started in the 1620s continued in the decades after the peace of Westphalia, and the number of new princes was gradually increased by new grantees chosen from the closest court circle in Vienna (most often the emperor’s Obersthofmeister).45 Consequently, together with the acquisition of estates in Bohemia by old imperial princes, as mentioned above, the number of princes in Bohe- mia doubled during the century after 1648. As a high noble stratum with mostly trans-territorial possessions, the new princes became an inescap- able phenomenon of the Habsburg Monarchy. Their presence was visible as much at the Viennese court, where many of them acquired a secure and influential position, as in the provinces. As a group whose status was left largely unsettled and gave cause for innumerable disputes about rights and precedence,46 they found themselves in an area of conflict between the ruler with claim to territorial sovereignty on the one hand, and the local aristocrats on the other hand. They saw themselves as parallel to the old princes from the Empire and Silesia, but remained at the same time integrated in the Herrenstand in Bohemia and other hereditary lands. Intermarriage with old princely houses took place only rarely. A considerable number of marriages among the new princely families reflected the tendency towards enhanced distinction, though they were, on the other hand, unable to restrict marriages with their fellow members of the territorial estates at a lower rank of nobility (especially counts).47 Various life strategies developed from this contradictory position, in which the new princes oscillated between a close dependence on the imperial court and the endeavour to demonstrate princely independence. Two instructions written by new princes for their first-born sons in the

(1971), 173–85. On the aspirations of the Schaffgotsch family in Silesia since the seventeenth century, see Joachim Bahlcke et al. (ed.), Das Haus Schaffgotsch. Konfession, Politik und Gedächtnis eines schlesischen Adelsgeschlechts vom Mittelalter bis zur Moderne (Würz- burg, 2010). 44 Kazimierz Orzechowski, ‘Monarszy komisarze na ogólnośląskich zgromadzeniach stanowych’, Studia śląskie, Seria nowa, 32 (1977), 301–20 45 Klein, ‘Erhebungen’, 162f. 46 Winkelbauer, Fürst, 288–337. 47 Unsuccessful marriage projects are revealing too: Evelin Oberhammer, ‘Gesegnet sei dies Band. Eheprojekte, Heiratspakten und Hochzeit im fürstlichen Haus’, in ead. (ed.), Der ganzen Welt ein Lob und Spiegel. Das Fürstentum Liechtenstein in der frühen Neuzeit (München, 1990), 182–203. bohemia, silesia and the empire 161 late seventeenth century exemplify this dilemma. While Karl Eusebius of Liechtenstein (1611–84) advised his son by 1680 to resign service to the Emperor, to keep a courteous distance from the imperial court, to marry into the old princely houses from the Empire and to cultivate his princely rank,48 Ferdinand of Schwarzenberg (1652–1703) displayed a very different opinion only two decades later: To rely upon princely rank and property would be ‘the best way to early ruin’. Instead, his son should gain an optimal education necessary in order to be visible and useful politically and militarily to his ruler and fatherland (‘Ihro Mayt. dem Kayser und vat- terlandt in statu politico seu militari oder cumulative nützlich zu dienen und öffters bey deinem herrn zu erscheinen’). At the imperial court, Schwarzenberg junior should look for protection, both against the old imperial princes who gang up to shun the newcomers (‘die neo-creatos sehr von sich ordinario quodam jure zu distinguiren suechen und unter sich dessen resolvirt zu haben vorgeben’), the imperial counts who try to be too matey (‘wenig oder eine geringe distinction zulaßen’), and especially the envious nobility from the hereditary lands, because ‘wür khaum durch ein seculum in denen Kay. erblanden possessionirter uns befün- den und dahero non attentis maximis prestitis servitiis ob incrementum bonorum sehr beneidet werden’.49 In fact, these opposite opinions on an optimal life strategy reflect the different careers of the two fathers: Liech- tenstein, after sporadic service as Oberhauptmann in Silesia, deliberately retired and devoted his life to art patronage and the administration of his large estates, while Schwarzenberg dwelt permanently at the court with highest rank as one of the most honoured aulic dignitaries.50 New princes developed on the other hand a certain stubbornness within their overall loyalty towards the dynasty, which underscored their peculiar position on the border between status within the provincial estates and the claim to their own territorial sovereignty. First of all,

48 Winkelbauer, Fürst, 367, 451, 511. 49 ‘. . . wan du nach meinem todt auff den fürstenstandt sowohl alß auch auff daß ienige vermögen, so vihlen in die augen stechet, principaliter reflectiren und dich steiffen wolt- est, so ist dieses der rechte weg eines ehisten ruin..’ The instruction is contained in a long letter from 1698, State regional archives in Třeboň, branch Český Krumlov, Rodinný archiv Schwarzenberků, box 416 (19th-century copy: original seems to be lost). 50 Victor Fleischer, Fürst Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein als Bauherr und Kunstsam- mler (1611–84) (Vienna/Leipzig, 1910); Herbert Haupt, Fürst Karl Eusebius Liechtenstein 1611–84 (Munich, 2007); Adam Wolf, ‘Fürst Ferdinand von Schwarzenberg, 1652–1703’, in id., Geschichtliche Bilder aus Oesterreich, vol. II (Vienna, 1880), 146–97; Rostislav Smíšek, Císařský dvůr a dvorská kariéra Ditrichštejnů a Schwarzenberků za vlády Leopolda I. (České Budějovice, 2009). 162 petr maŤa the unclear titular position and their multiple overlapping identities as imperial princes, Silesian princes, members of the Herrenstand in various provinces and frequently aulic dignitaries predisposed the new princes to quarrel about their rank. The demand for special distinction made the new princes frequent trouble-makers at the imperial court.51 Secondly, their marriage strategies were peculiar. Just at the end of the process of confessional homogenization of the nobility in the hereditary lands, as intermarriage within the Catholic nobility became a norm, two prominent new princely families—Eggenberg (1639) and Lobkowitz (1653)—risked marriage alliances with Protestant princely houses from the Empire (Bran- denburg-Bayreuth and Pfalz-Sulzbach). In both cases, marriage contracts guaranteed the right of free exercise of religion on the side of the woman and both marriages were regarded by the emperor as suspect.52 Thirdly, their attitude towards the administration of the hereditary provinces marked out the new princes from other strata of the Bohemian-Austrian aristocracy. In some of the territories for instance (Bohemia included), they stayed away from the diets.53 Moreover, they only rarely took part in the provincial administration and if so, then as leading representatives of His Majesty at best (e.g. as extraordinary governors in the 1620s or as Landeshauptleute). Such involvement in the Landesverwaltung was perhaps perceived as potentially threatening for their claims of Reichsstand- schaft, though exceptions can be found too.54

51 Jeroen Duindam, Vienna and Versailles. The Courts of Europe’s Dynastic Rivals, 1550– 1780 (Cambridge, 2003), 249, 281f. 52 Walther Ernst Heydendorff, Die Fürsten und Freiherren zu Eggenberg und ihre Vor- fahren (Graz etc., 1965), 161f.; Adam Wolf, Fürst Wenzel Lobkowitz, erster geheimer Rath Kaiser Leopold’s I., 1609–77. Sein Leben und Wirken (Vienna, 1869), 40–50; Georg Steller, Wenzel Eusebius v. Lobkowitz und die Kirchenvisitation im Fürstentum Sagan vom Jahre 1670. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Saganer Gegenreformation (Breslau, 1937), 11–14; Richard Šípek, Vrchní správce Christoph Philipp Zickel. Příspěvek k dějinám správy lobkovického panství Neustadt-Störnstein, 1656–75), Porta Bohemica, 2 (2003), 79–91. 53 Petr Matˇa, ‘Wer waren die Landstände? Betrachtungen zu den böhmischen und öster- reichischen „Kernländern“ der Habsburgermonarchie im 17. und frühen 18. Jahrhundert’, in Gerhard Ammerer et al. (ed.), Bündnispartner und Konkurrenten des Landesfürsten? Die Stände in der Habsburgermonarchie (Vienna/Munich, 2007), 68–89, at 83. 54 In Moravia, princes seem to have been more involved in the provincial administration, especially the Dietrichsteins. The fact that their princely dignity was hereditary only in the first-born, while other scions were counts, may have played a role. Jiří David, ‘Ferdinand z Dietrichsteina v zemských službách. Projev rodové kontinuity nebo péče o kariéru?’ in Kardinál František z Ditrichštejna a jeho doba. XXIX. mikulovské sympozium (Brno, 2006), 391–8. The activity of the Eggenbergs in Carniola and within the Inner Aus- trian privy council in Graz merits further examination. bohemia, silesia and the empire 163

This change in social strategy in consequence of the acquisition of princely rank can be exemplified by the Lobkowitz family that actively participated in the administration of Bohemia in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. After one branch was made princely in 1624, however, it quickly withdrew from the matters of the province. Instead, it gravitated to the imperial court and the army. Simultaneously, the Lob- kowitz extended their range of action towards the Holy Roman Empire and Silesia. Ferdinand August (1655–1715), the third prince, was the only one among the emperor’s Prinzipalkommissare at the imperial diet in Regensburg who was neither an ecclesiastical prince, nor a scion of an old princely house from the Empire, but descended from the nobility of the hereditary lands.55 His descendants entered prominent cathedral chapters in the Empire.56 Though the princes Lobkowitz frequently represented His Majesty at the Fürstentag in Silesia between 1680s and 1730s, they withdrew from the Bohemian diet already in the 1630s, although they possessed most of their landed property in that country. None of them was sent to the diet in Bohemia after 1649.57 The benevolent support for loyal princes in Silesia, Bohemia and other hereditary lands under Ferdinand II, however, gradually came under criticism. Already in 1631, Vilém Slavata, the high chancellor of Bohemia, regarded the relocation of the imperial prince Julius Heinrich of Sachsen- Lauenburg to Bohemia and his marriage with a wealthy widow of the local Herrenstand as threatening to the raggione di stato.58 At the latest in Leopold I’s time, the Habsburgs employed a more rigorous policy towards the princes in the hereditary lands. The rejection of the pretensions of the Liechtenstein secundogeniture with regard to the duchy of Teschen, the costly fiscal disputes with Karl Eusebius of Liechtenstein in 1655–65, as

55 Walter Fürnrohr, ‘Die Vertreter des habsburgischen Kaisertums auf dem Immer- währenden Reichstag’, Verhandlungen des Historischen Vereins für Oberpfalz und Regens- burg, 123 (1983), 71–139; 124 (1984), 99–148, at 94f. 56 Peter Hersche, Die deutschen Domkapitel im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (3 vols, Bern, 1984), at vol. 1, 250. 57 Orzechowski, ‘Monarszy komisarze’; Petr Matˇa, ‘Komisaři k českému zemskému sněmu 1627–1740’, in Jiří Mikulec and Miloslav Polívka (ed.), Per saecula ad tempora nostra. Sborník prací k šedesátým narozeninám prof. Jaroslava Pánka (2 vols, Prague, 2007), i.309–18. 58 ‘Hi sunt fructus, když takový knížata za obyvatele do vlasti naší přijímáni bývají, a čím mocnější učiněni budou, tím víceji budou sobě praesumírovati, že vše má bejti po jejich vůli. Nejmilo[stivější] vrchnost neráčí je chtíti disgustýrovato a mezitím i nejspravedlivější některý z obyvatelův utrpěti musí? Jestliže to ženění, které též kníže u nás v Čechách učiniti má, jest per raggion di stato dobré?’: Slavata to Pavel Michna, 8. Nov. 1631, State regional archives in Třeboň, branch Jindřichův Hradec, Rodinný archiv Slavatů, book 15, p. 120. 164 petr maŤa well as the fall from disgrace of influential ministers Johann Weikhard of Auersperg (1669) and Wenzel Eusebius of Lobkowitz (1674), elucidate this turn of policy as well as the vulnerability of new princes.59 The ghost of Wallenstein may have played a role too.60 In later decades, forms of address and prerogatives which could have called in question the sovereignty of the Habsburgs in the hereditary lands, such as the address ‘Durchlaucht’ or the formula ‘allergnädigst’, were withdrawn from the new princes and their earlier claims to full rank were rebuffed: without that they gave up the service to the emperor and his court.61 The new princes remained an influent, prominent and wealthy stratum within the Monar- chia Austriaca, but in consequence their princely dignity was increasingly degraded to that of mere nobility. For an adequate understanding of how the new princes from the Bohe- mian and Austrian territories perceived the Old Reich, much remains to be done yet. In any case, the profound transformation of the nobility under the Habsburg dynasty that gave birth to an aristocratic stratum characterized by trans-territorial property and multiple identities, prompted manifold contacts at the social level between the Holy Roman Empire and the high nobility from Bohemia and Silesia. It appears that the status of imperial prince exerted much authority among the high nobility in early modern Bohemia and Silesia: It was conceived sometimes as an inspiration, at other times as a challenge, and it was repeatedly emulated by those who intended to raise their rank and influence. When viewed from the perspective of the Holy Roman Empire, the social position of the new princes might appear a marginal one, because their influence in the political system of the Empire remained minimal. From the perspective of the Habsburg hereditary territories, where they represented the upper, very rich and powerful echelon of nobility, however, their symbolic

59 Jacob von Falke, Geschichte des fürstlichen Hauses Liechtenstein (3 vols, Vienna, 1868– 82), ii.309–12; Hannes Stekl, ‘Ein Fürst hat und bedarf viel Ausgaben und also viel Intraden. Die Finanzen des Hauses Liechtenstein im 17. Jahrhundert’, in Oberhammer, Lob und Spie- gel, 64–85, at 73ff.; Winkelbauer, Fürst, 536–40; Grete Mecenseffy, ‘Im Dienste dreier Habs burger. Leben und Wirken des Fürsten Johann Weikhard Auersperg,1615–77’, Archiv für österreichische Geschichte, 114 (1938), 295–509; Wolf, Fürst Wenzel Lobkowitz. 60 Christoph Kampmann, ‘Zweiter Mann im Staat oder Staat im Staat? Zur Stellung Wallensteins in der Administration Kaiser Ferdinands II.’, in Michael Kaiser and Andreas Pečar (ed.), Der zweite Mann im Staat. Oberste Amtsträger und Favoriten im Umkreis der Reichsfürsten in der frühen Neuzeit (Berlin, 2003), 295–315. 61 Winkelbauer, Fürst, 319f. Typical was the withdrawal of the title ‘Durchlaucht’ in the case of the princes of Lobkowitz in 1722–6: National archives (Prague), Stará manipulace, L 39/41, box 1398. bohemia, silesia and the empire 165 integration into princely society mattered regardless of their actual influence within the Empire. No matter that the old imperial princes neither recognized the Silesian dukes as Reichsstände nor accepted the new princes as their equals in rank: the very claim for equality of birth with the imperial princes was frequently used as an instrument for enhancing prestige in the peripheral territories. Thus the system of noble rank of the Holy Roman Empire helped to structure the nobility on its peripheries, it contributed fundamentally to the profile and pretensions of the high noble élite both in Bohemia and Silesia, and it had manifold social and cultural consequences.

Separation and Symbiosis: The Habsburg Monarchy and the Empire in the Seventeenth Century

Thomas Winkelbauer

Looking at the decades around 1700, historians of Central Europe have detected a growing separation between the imperial policy (Reichspolitik) of the emperors, on the one hand, and the politics of the court of Vienna, being primarily directed by the interests of the Austrian Monarchy, i.e. the rising European great power Austria, on the other hand. After the Peace of Westphalia, it was said, a gradual evolution away from the Holy Roman Empire, or a gradual ‘outgrowth’ of Austria from the Reich, can be observed.1 No doubt, this observation is right, but Austria’s ‘outgrowth’ or evolution away from the Empire had a long previous history. As Oswald Redlich stated already shortly after World War I, the peace instrument of Osnabrück in this respect only brought a ‘formal legal completion of long existing circumstances’.2 This dichotomy or ambiguity of imperium and monarchia in a way was already present at the birth of the Habsburg Mon- archy. It came into being in 1526 as a ‘monarchical union of corporative states’ (‘monarchische Union von Ständestaaten’),3 and it continued to be a ‘composite monarchy’4 until its very end in 1918. Archduke Ferdinand I,

1 Cf. e.g. Karl Otmar von Aretin, Das Alte Reich 1648–1806 (4 vols, Stuttgart, 1993–2000); Heinz Duchhardt, Altes Reich und europäische Staatenwelt, 1648–1806 (Munich, 1990); Elisa- beth Kovács, ‘Die “Herausentwicklung Österreichs aus dem Heiligen Römischen Reich” im Reflex der Beziehungen von Kaisertum und Papsttum während des 18. Jahrhunderts’, in Österreich im Europa der Aufklärung. Kontinuität und Zäsur in Europa zur Zeit Maria Theresias und Josephs II. (2 vols, Vienna, 1985), i. 421–36; Harm Klueting, Das Reich und Österreich, 1648–1740 (Münster, 1999). 2 ‘[. . .] nur einen reichsrechtlich formellen Abschluß längst schon bestehender Verhält- nisse’: Oswald Redlich, Österreichs Großmachtbildung in der Zeit Kaiser Leopolds I. (Gotha, 1921), 2; identical with id., Weltmacht des Barock. Österreich in der Zeit Kaiser Leopolds I. (4th edn, Vienna, 1961), 2. 3 Otto Brunner, ‘Das Haus Österreich und die Donaumonarchie’, Südost-Forschungen, 14 (1955), 122–44: ‘Die Monarchie erweist sich als eine monarchische Union ihrer Königre- iche und Länder, die jede für sich Ständestaaten waren.’ Id., Land und Herrschaft. Grund- fragen der territorialen Verfassungsgeschichte Österreichs im Mittelalter ([1939], 5th edn, Baden bei Wien etc., 1965), 447. 4 Cf. e.g. Helmut G. Koenigsberger, ‘Dominium regale or dominium politicum et regale? Monarchies and Parliaments in Early Modern Europe’, in Karl Bosl (ed.), Der moderne 168 thomas winkelbauer who after the battle of Mohács via personal union combined the Austrian hereditary lands of the Habsburgs with the lands of the Bohemian and the Hungarian crown into a condominium, was only in 1531 elected King of the Romans, and not proclaimed the ‘chosen Roman emperor’ by the elector of Mainz until 1558. Two decades ago, Robert Bireley called Emperor Ferdinand II, the grandson of Ferdinand I, ‘the founder of the Habsburg Monarchy’. Bireley assessed his ‘long intervention in the Empire’ in the first half of the Thirty Years War as ‘an aberration that distracted him from attention to the Habsburg lands’.5 He summed up his considerations as follows: ‘The Habsburg Monarchy, based on a system of co-operation among dynasty, aristocracy or estates, and Church, assumed this form under Ferdinand II and as a result of his policy. It emerged successfully from the crisis of the 1620s as a European power by 1648. Ferdinand established his inheritance as a unified entity [. . .]; he determined a policy of conciliation towards the estates and nobility which continued to give them a significant role in the Monarchy; and he promoted a policy of confessionalisation that contributed to the Monarchy’s identity and otherwise served its interests. So he more than any other may rightfully be called the founder of the Habsburg Monarchy.’6 Jaroslav Pánek, however, in an examination of the continuities to be found in the political programme of the Austrian branch of the house of Habsburg in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, took the example of the kingdom of Bohemia in the fields of succession to the throne, diet management, public finances and jurisdiction, and came to the conclusion that Emperor Ferdinand II and the authors of the ‘Revised Land Ordinance’ (Verneuerte Landesordnung) for Bohemia (1627) and Moravia (1628) followed a constitutional and political tradition that went back to the reform endeavours of Ferdinand I. According to Pánek, King Ferdinand and his

Parlamentarismus und seine Grundlagen in der ständischen Repräsentation (Berlin, 1977) 43–86; id., ‘Zusammengesetzte Staaten, Repräsentativversammlungen und der amerikani- sche Unabhängigkeitskrieg’, Zeitschrift für historische Forschung, 18 (1991), 399–423; J[ohn] H. Elliott, ‘A Europe of Composite Monarchies’, Past & Present, 137 (1992), 48–71. See also Thomas Fröschl (ed.), Föderationsmodelle und Unionsstrukturen. Über Staatenverbindun- gen in der frühen Neuzeit vom 15. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert (Vienna/Munich, 1994); Wolfgang Reinhard, Geschichte der Staatsgewalt. Eine vergleichende Verfassungsgeschichte Europas von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Munich, 1999), 44–7. 5 Robert Bireley, ‘Ferdinand II: Founder of the Habsburg Monarchy’, in R(obert) J.W. Evans and T.V. Thomas (ed.), Crown, Church and Estates. Central European Politics in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1991), 226–44, at 230. 6 Ibid., 240. separation & symbiosis: the habsburg monarchy & the empire 169 advisers as early as the second quarter of the sixteenth century charted centrally-inspired models of government and of integration for the complex union of lands of the emerging Habsburg Monarchy that a century later were applied by his grandson and further successors in analogous situations. Pánek especially refers to the marriages between members of the nobility of the Bohemian and the Austrian lands that were encouraged or even promoted by the monarch, as well as to the general diets (Generallandtage) and committee diets (Ausschusslandtage) of the Bohe- mian and Austrian lands. In the 1550s Ferdinand I developed new forms of convoking estate representatives to Vienna ‘with the aim of securing the communication between monarch and lands without its being necessary for the aging King to visit the several provinces ‘like a nomad’. In this attempt can be seen new forms of communication between court and country that only in the late seventeenth century could be realized by a court aristocracy which originated from the different parts of the Habs burg Monarchy.’7 Pánek, unlike Bireley, therefore comes to the conclusion that Ferdinand I was ‘the founder of the Habsburg Monarchy’ and ‘the author of the political programme of the Austrian Habsburgs’.8 With good reason we can even go one more step further back: in respect of the establishment of an administrative machinery at court for the entire conglomerate of his territories, of central authorities for the two groups of Austrian lands (in Innsbruck for the Upper Austrian lands and in Vienna for the Lower Austrian lands), as well as of authorities for the separate provinces, Ferdinand I continued the tradition of his grandfather Maximilian I, who since 1493 had combined in his hands the rule over all Austrian lands and who for his part had been strongly influenced by his experience in Burgundy and the Netherlands, the late medieval composite state par excellence.9

7 Jaroslav Pánek, ‘Ferdinand I—der Schöpfer des politischen Programms der österrei chischen Habsburger?’, in Petr Matˇa and Thomas Winkelbauer (ed.), Die Habsburgermon- archie, 1620 bis 1740. Leistungen und Grenzen des Absolutismusparadigmas (Stuttgart, 2006), 63–72, at 69 f. 8 Ibid., 63 (title) and 71. 9 Cf. Hermann Wiesflecker, ‘Die österreichischen Länder, das Reich und Europa an der Wende zur Neuzeit. Länderfreiheit und Gesamtstaat’, in Bericht über den neunzehnten österreichischen Historikertag in Graz veranstaltet vom Verband Österreichischer Geschich- tsvereine in der Zeit vom 18. bis 23. Mai 1992 (Vienna, 1993), 26–38; id., Österreich im Zeit- alter Maximilians I. Die Vereinigung der Länder zum frühmodernen Staat. Der Aufstieg zur Weltmacht (Vienna/Munich, 1999), 221–74. Wiesflecker certainly tends to overestimate the effects of the centralizing efforts of Maximilian I. Cf. also Manfred Hollegger, ‘Maximilian 170 thomas winkelbauer

Moreover, Emperor Maximilian planned to strengthen the legal bonds between the single Austrian Lands and to enhance the position of their princes among the other Princes of the Empire by creating a Kingdom of Austria. The first King of Austria was to be his grandson Ferdinand. The plan failed, most likely, because of the opposition of Ferdinand’s brother Charles, who ‘didn’t want to see his position within the entire house [of Habsburg] curtailed by raising Ferdinand’, but probably also because of the opposition of the Estates of the single Austrian Lands and the rejection of the Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire.10 In this paper I focus on the seventeenth century, because in this century the Habsburg Monarchy underwent a process of growing integration inside and of separation vis-à-vis the Empire ‘outside’. In the seventeenth century the Monarchia Austriaca was consolidated as a territorial state and separated from the Empire in fields of high importance within the state building process, such as the development of central (court) authorities independently from the authorities of the Empire to manage warfare, finances, and the postal system. After an effective tax system had been established in the Holy Roman Empire in the first half of the sixteenth century that between 1556 and 1607 raised more than 30 million guilders of Türkensteuer to be used against the Ottomans, the imperial dignity served not least as symbolic capital in order to mobilize the resources of those territories and cities of the Empire that were not subject to direct Habsburg territorial rule for the purposes of Habsburg dynastic power and the defence and expansion of the Habsburg Monarchy. In cases of conflict between these two, the ‘reason of Empire’ (Reichsräson) tended in Vienna to be subordinated to the Austrian reason of state (Staatsräson), the reason of Empire being the maintenance of the equilibrium between emperor and imperial estates, constitutionally fixed in 1648, and between the big and the small imperial estates, or, to employ a contemporary term, the preservation of the ‘liberty’ (Libertät) of the imperial estates.11 ‘After 1648 the imperial politics of the emperors were dictated by the primacy of the interests of the hereditary lands and Austrian great power politics

I. und die Entwicklung der Zentralverwaltung am Hof und in den österreichischen Erblän- dern von 1510–19’ (Unpubl. diss., Univ. of Graz, 1983). 10 Hermann Wiesflecker, ‘Neue Beiträge zu Kaiser Maximilians I. Plänen eines “König- reiches Österreich” ’, in Herwig Ebner et al. (ed.), Forschungen zur Landes- und Kirchenge- schichte. Festschrift Helmut J. Mezler-Andelberg zum 65. Geburtstag (Graz, 1988), 529–42, at 540 f. 11 See esp. Heinz Duchhardt and Matthias Schnettger (ed.), Reichsständische Libertät und habsburgisches Kaisertum (Mainz, 1999). separation & symbiosis: the habsburg monarchy & the empire 171 and had to serve the interests of the house of Austria.’12 It is open to discussion when exactly in Vienna Austrian great-power politics gained superiority over imperial politics, but it was possibly not as late as under Joseph I, as Karl Otmar von Aretin believes.13 On the other hand Aretin most likely is right to say that until the short reign (1705–11) of that very energetic emperor no open ‘antagonism between the imperial politics of the emperor and Austrian great power politics’ came into being.14 ‘Only under Joseph I,’ states Georg Schmidt, ‘did the consolidation of the Aus- trian Monarchy—if necessary at the expense of the Empire—became a political programme.’15 But already for his father Leopold I ‘the imperial State [Reichs-Staat] was not the most important political arena. His politics were centred on the consolidation of the conglomerate of his territories.’16 On the other hand, there can be no doubt that Emperor Leopold believed in the complete harmony of the interests of the Empire and his hereditary lands—or at least referred to it in his political rhetoric.17

12 Klueting, Das Reich und Österreich, 127. 13 Aretin, Das Alte Reich, 1648–1806, i. 340. 14 Aretin, Das Alte Reich, 1648–1806, ii. 140. ‘Die Unterscheidung zwischen österreichi- scher Großmachtpolitik und Reichspolitik ist [freilich] ein überaus schwieriges Problem, weil beide in vielen Bereichen parallel liefen oder sich durchdrangen:’ ibid., 142. ‘In den meisten Fällen ist die österreichische Großmachtpolitik von der Reichspolitik nicht klar zu trennen. Zumindest wurde die eine von der anderen beeinflußt. [. . .] Die österreichi- sche Großmachtpolitik stand aus begreiflichen Gründen in Wien im Vordergrund. Dar- über wird leicht die Bedeutung der kurzen Regierungszeit Josephs I. für die Reichspolitik übersehen:’ ibid., 162. 15 Georg Schmidt, Geschichte des Alten Reiches. Staat und Nation in der Frühen Neuzeit, 1495–1806 (Munich, 1999), 199. 16 Georg Schmidt, ‘Angst vor dem Kaiser? Die Habsburger, die Erblande und die deutsche Libertät im 17. Jahrhundert’, in Duchhardt and Schnettger (ed.), Reichsständische Libertät, 329–48, at 343. 17 Cf., e.g., Leopold’s Laxenburg Manifesto, issued 15 May 1702, the emperor’s declaration of war against the king of France (and the duke of Anjou). In that Manifesto, promulgated almost five months before the declaration of war of the Regensburg Diet, Leopold I, referring to the interests of the ‘Holy Roman Empire and Our own Hereditary King- doms and Lands’, ordered ‘allen Unsern und des Reichs Unterthanen und Getreuen bey denen Pflichten, so sie Uns und dem Reich schuldig, auch bey Verwürkung Hab und Guth, Leib und Leben, hiemit ernstlich, und wollen, daß sich keiner in ermeldter Cron Frank- reich, des Duc d’Anjou oder deren Helferen Diensten gebrauchen lassen [. . .].’ Cited in Johann Joseph Pachner von Eggenstorff, Vollständige Sammlung aller von Anfang des noch fürwährenden Teutschen Reichs-Tags de Anno 1663 biß anhero abgefaßten Reichs-Schlüsse Part 3: 1701 bis 1718 (Regensburg, 1776; repr. Ed. Karl Otmar von Aretin and Johannes Burk hardt, Hildesheim, 1996), 11 f. (annex 1 to the ‘Kaiserliches Kommissionsdekret’ of 15 July 1702), and: [Eucharius Gottlieb Rinck,] Leopolds des Grossen / Röm. Käysers / wunderwür- diges Leben und Thaten, aus geheimen nachrichten eröffnet (2 vols, 2nd edn, Leipzig, 1709), ii. 1391, 1395. 172 thomas winkelbauer

In his role as emperor the Habsburg who ruled in personal union the Austrian, Bohemian and Hungarian lands was from 1558 simultaneously the highest feudal lord and the highest judge of all princes and estates of the Holy Roman Empire. Despite a striking institutional consolidation between 1495 and 1555, the Empire remained up to its end in 1806 a personal association primarily defined by feudal law. The Habsburg hereditary lands, also comprising the Bohemian lands and the kingdom of Hungary at the latest after 1627 and 1687 respectively, were the immediate patrimony and dominion of the emperor in his role as territorial prince and the real ‘basis of his imperial politics’, that he could retreat to in times of weakness and threat. ‘Hence it appears’, as Volker Press stressed, ‘that the hereditary lands naturally had to be the object of the first interest of the house of Austria. [. . .] Only a consolidated position in the hereditary lands made possible an active imperial politics.’18 The Austrian and the Bohemian lands were, with some restrictions in respect of the latter to be discussed below, parts of the Holy Roman Empire, while the kingdom of Hungary was not. The kingdom of Bohemia proper and its associated, or incorporated, lands (Nebenländer) Moravia, Silesia, Upper and Lower Lusatia, had since the Hussite wars more and more drifted away from the Empire. In the early modern period even their connection to the Empire by feudal law was disputed and was at best a very loose one. The connection was based primarily on the position of the king of Bohemia as senior secular elector. The enfeoffment of the Bohemian king by the Roman emperor, according to leading political actors as well as some (but by no means all) contemporary historians and jurists, referred only to the electoral dignity and the office of arch- cupbearer of the Holy Roman Empire as well as to the Bohemian imperial fiefs situated outside Bohemia and Moravia, but not to the two core lands of the Bohemian crown themselves. This view was not only (from the fifteenth century) taken by the powerful Bohemian estates, but also by King Ferdinand I, who in 1545 in his Gravamina contested Bohemia’s feudal dependence and her membership of the Empire, describing her rather as ‘another separate realm and nation’ (‘ain annder sonnder Reich und nation’);19 whereas Emperors Rudolf II, Matthias and Ferdinand II

18 Volker Press, ‘Die Erblande und das Reich von Albrecht II. bis Karl VI., 1438–1740’, in Robert A. Kann and Friedrich E. Prinz (ed.), Deutschland und Österreich. Ein bilaterales Geschichtsbuch (Vienna/Munich, 1980), 44–88, at 50 f. 19 Ferdinand’s Gravamina are printed in Alexander Begert, Böhmen, die böhmische Kur und das Reich vom Hochmittelalter bis zum Ende des Alten Reiches. Studien zur Kurwürde separation & symbiosis: the habsburg monarchy & the empire 173 sometimes, but not always, held that the Bohemian kingdom was an imperial fief ( feudum imperii).20 The Silesian principalities and the two Lusatias from the fourteenth century onwards had been fiefs of the Bohe- mian crown and therefore were connected to the Holy Roman Empire at most indirectly (as mesne-fiefs). De facto from about 1500 at the latest and until 1708 the kingdom of Bohemia was no membrum imperii. After the abdication of Emperor Charles V in 1556 the vassalage between the Bohemian king and the Roman emperor continued to lose importance, as since that time (until 1740) feudal lord and vassal were united in one person. The Bohemian kingdom and its ruler were not represented in the electoral college of the imperial diet (with the exception of the participation of the king of Bohe- mia in the conclaves). The Bohemian lands were exempt from imperial laws (Reichsgesetze) and imperial taxes (Reichssteuern) and they were neither included into the institution of the imperial circles (Reichskreisverfas- sung), founded between 1500 and 1522–3, nor into the imperial executive ordinance (Reichsexekutionsordnung).21 The Bohemian lands also didn’t belong to the area of jurisdiction of the Reichskammergericht. In order to prevent any future appeals from city courts in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia to ‘higher instances’ in German imperial cities, Ferdinand I in 1548 founded the royal court of appeal in Prague.22 After the so-called re-admission of the Bohemian king to the electoral college in 1708, the emperors used their position as electors of Bohemia as another instrument und zur staatsrechtlichen Stellung Böhmens (Husum, 2003), 609 f.; for the context cf. ibid., 314–31. 20 Cf. ibid., 314–31, 424–33. 21 Matthias Weber, Das Verhältnis Schlesiens zum Alten Reich in der frühen Neuzeit (Cologne, 1992), 28 f. and passim (see 497, s. v. ‘Reichskreise’); Anton Karl Mally, Der Öster- reichische Kreis in der Exekutionsordnung des Römisch-Deutschen Reiches (Vienna, 1967), 330. 22 See above all Begert, Böhmen, die böhmische Kur und das Reich, an authoritative and exhaustive treatment of the relations between Bohemia and the Empire between 1198 and 1806. For the early modern period cf. also R.J.W. Evans, ‘The Habsburg Monarchy and Bohemia, 1526–1848’ [1991], in id., Austria, Hungary, and the Habsburgs. Essays on Central Europe, c. 1683–1867 (Oxford, 2006), 75–98; Jaroslav Pánek, ‘Der böhmische Staat und das Reich in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Volker Press (ed.), Alternativen zur Reichsverfassung in der Frühen Neuzeit? (Munich, 1995), 169–78; Jiří Veselý, ‘K otázce lenního vztahu k římské říši v českých dějinách’, Sborník archivních prací, 29 (1979), 56–116; Weber, Das Verhält- nis Schlesiens zum Alten Reich, 49–53 and passim; Joachim Bahlcke, Regionalismus und Staatsintegration im Widerstreit. Die Länder der Böhmischen Krone im ersten Jahrhundert der Habsburgerherrschaft, 1526–1619 (Munich, 1994), 46 f., 98, 252; Winfried Dotzauer, Die deutschen Reichskreise in der Verfassung des Alten Reiches und ihr Eigenleben, 1500–1806 (Darmstadt, 1989), 47 f.; id., Die deutschen Reichskreise, 1383–1806. Geschichte und Aktenedi- tion (Stuttgart, 1998), 381. 174 thomas winkelbauer for promoting the interests of the dynasty and the Austrian Monarchy at the Reichstag.23 The Austrian lands, it is true, were included in the Reichskreisverfas- sung, but the Austrian circle, founded in 1521—approximately simultaneously with the abortive plan to create a kingdom of Austria mentioned above—primarily served to strengthen Habsburg dynastic power. As in the Burgundian circle, so in the Austrian one no circle diets (Kreistage) were held. The Habsburgs were the only powerful circle estate (Kreis- stand), and the Austrian circle was no regional corporate organ of the imperial constitution (Reichsverfassung), but an additional bond between the house of Habsburg and the Empire. By uniting the Austrian hereditary lands in a separate imperial circle, their homogeneousness and unity were strengthened also in the period between 1564 and 1665, when the Austrian branch of the house of Habsburg was divided into separate lines. In order to preserve the unity of the Habsburg house vis-à-vis the Empire, the Habsburgs residing in Vienna (or Prague), Graz and Innsbruck after 1564 continued to be represented in the council of princes at the Reichs- tag with one common voice only.24 A crucial aspect of the relaxation of the ties that connected the Aus- trian and Bohemian lands to the Holy Roman Empire is to be observed in the endeavours of the Austrian Habsburgs and their counsellors aiming at integrating more than a dozen kingdoms and lands with very different historical traditions, political and judicial systems into a relatively centralized state, ruled in a rather uniform manner, or at least rendered militarily and financially as strong as possible. Despite all the remaining structural weaknesses and problems this goal was reached not later than during the War of Spanish Succession.25 These efforts towards integrating the Habsburg lands manifested themselves among other things in Habsburg dynastic law. Following the example of Spain and the model of his father Charles, who established

23 Begert, Böhmen, die böhmische Kur und das Reich, 479–552. 24 For details, see Winfried Schulze, ‘Das Haus Österreich auf den Reichstagen des späten sechzehnten Jahrhunderts’, Österreich in Geschichte und Literatur, 16 (1972), 121–31; id., Reich und Türkengefahr im späten 16. Jahrhundert. Studien zu den politischen und gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen einer äußeren Bedrohung (Munich, 1978); id., Landesdefension und Staatsbildung. Studien zum Kriegswesen des innerösterreichischen Territorialstaates, 1564–1619 (Vienna, 1973). 25 Cf. Thomas Winkelbauer, ‘Nervus rerum Austriacarum. Zur Finanzgeschichte der Habsburgermonarchie’, in Maťa and Winkelbauer (ed.), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1620 bis 1740, 179–215. separation & symbiosis: the habsburg monarchy & the empire 175 the right of primogeniture in the Inner Austrian lands in 1584, Emperor Ferdinand II, after his victory over the estates’ opposition, established the rule of primogeniture for all his lands in his Testament of 1621 and forbade all future divisions of inheritance. He based the necessity of this ruling on the Turkish threat as well as the danger of rebellion from within the Habsburg patrimony.26 This dynastic union of all of his lands was a sovereign princely act; the provinces and their estates did not even have knowledge of this decision until the period between 1720 and 1725, following the publication of the Testament in connection with the recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction by the separate diets.27 The creation of a uniform legal system and state apparatus in the ‘core state’ (Kernstaat) of the Monarchy, i.e. in the Austrian and Bohemian lands, did not occur before the second half of the eighteenth century, beginning with the state reform of 1749, which contemporaries experienced as ‘revolutionary’.28 On the other hand, the violent attempts (in particular those of the 1670s, 1780s, and 1850s) to force the kingdom of Hungary to accept a system of rule following the model of the Austrian and Bohemian lands failed and ultimately led to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise (Ausgleich) of 1867. The basis for this development was laid in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. * Three important elements and instruments of the political integration of the Habsburg Lands and their gradual separation from the Holy Roman Empire were the formation of an ‘Austrian’ aristocracy, the imperial court, and the postal system. The shattering of the nobles’ opposition in the

26 Gustav Turba, Die Grundlagen der Pragmatischen Sanktion. Vol. 2: Die Hausgesetze (Leipzig/Vienna, 1912), 335–51, at 341 f.: ‘daß von nuhn hinfüran zu ewigen Zeitten alle unsere Erbkünig-reich, Erzherzogthumber, Fürstenthumber, Lande und Leuthe [. . .] keineswegs [. . .] zerthailt oder zertrennt, sondern allezeit innsgesambt auf den eltisten Descendenten nach Art und Ausweisung des Juris Primogeniturae und Maioratus fallen und verstammet werden solle[n]’. 27 Gustav Turba, Die Pragmatische Sanktion. Authentische Texte samt Erläuterungen und Übersetzungen (Vienna, 1913), esp. 94–194; Winfried Schulze, ‘Hausgesetzgebung und Verstaatlichung im Hause Österreich vom Tode Maximilians I. bis zur Pragmatischen Sanktion’, in Johannes Kunisch (ed.), Der dynastische Fürstenstaat. Zur Bedeutung von Sukzessionsordnungen für die Entstehung des frühmodernen Staates (Berlin, 1982), 253–71, at 262–71. 28 Friedrich Walter, Die Theresianische Staatsreform von 1749 (Vienna, 1958); Franz A.J. Szabo, Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism, 1753–80 (Cambridge, 1994), 74–83 (the ‘Haug- witz revolution’) and passim; Charles W. Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815 (Cam- bridge, 2000), 159–72. 176 thomas winkelbauer

Bohemian lands and in Austria above and below the Enns after their military defeat in the battle of the White Mountain (1620) resulted in a mutually advantageous alliance between the loyal Catholic high nobility and the prince. Robert Evans summed up this informal alliance between the Habsburgs and the supra-national, courtly aristocracy which arose after 1600, in the following well-known way: ‘The Habsburgs compromised with an aristocracy which at court represented the country and in the country represented the court, exercising an almost complete monopoly over the senior dignities of the state.’29 Within about two generations the upper echelons of the nobilities of the Bohemian and Austrian Lands were transformed into a supra-territorial and supra-national aristocracy, no longer being oriented towards a single land, but towards the dynasty and the court of the emperor and multiple territorial prince. From the perspective of state building, the imperial court was the centre of political power and the most important site of the communication, interaction, and integration of the political elites of the Habsburg territories as well as the Holy Roman Empire and therefore, over time, it grew into the most important integrative centre of the developing Hab- sburg Monarchy. ‘It connected regions and elites to the centre by a range of media, from actual or honorary service, through rewards and titles, to festivities and ceremonies.’30 Until the implementation of the Maria Theresian reforms that followed the war of the Austrian Succession, court, government, and administration were not sharply divided spheres. Many of the high court officials combined their service to the court with the car- rying out of nominal or actual duties of a government office.31 The highest advisory body of the emperors was the Privy Council and after the middle of the 1660s the Privy Conference. In the seventeenth

29 R(obert) J.W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550–1700. An Interpreta- tion (Oxford, 1979), 211. 30 Jeroen Duindam, ‘Im Herzen der zusammengesetzten Habsburgermonarchie: Quellen zu einer neuen Geschichte des Hofes, der Regierung und der höfischen Repräsentation’, in Josef Pauser et al. (ed.), Quellenkunde der Habsburgermonarchie, 16.–18. Jahrhundert. Ein exemplarisches Handbuch (Vienna/Munich, 2004), 21–32, at 23. 31 Jeroen Duindam, ‘The Court of the Austrian Habsburgs: Locus of a Composite Heri- tage’, Mitteilungen der Residenzen-Kommission der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göt- tingen, 8 (1998), no. 2, 24–58, at 33 f.; Rainer A. Müller, Der Fürstenhof in der frühen Neuzeit (Munich, 1995), 8, 18 f.; id., ‘Hofstaat—Hofmann—Höfling. Kategorien des Personals an deutschen Fürstenhöfen der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Klaus Malettke and Chantal Grell (ed.), Hofgesellschaft und Höflinge an europäischen Fürstenhöfen in der Frühen Neuzeit, 15.-18. Jh. (Münster, 2001), 37–53, at 43–5. separation & symbiosis: the habsburg monarchy & the empire 177 century, almost all members of both bodies were aristocrats.32 Between 1600 and 1674, a total of 130 men were members of the Privy Council.33 Of these, 96 (around three quarters) came from lands where the emperor was territorial prince, of whom 51 were Austrian and 33 came from the Bohemian lands. At most, two or three privy councillors were Hungar- ian. Twenty two privy councillors came from territories of the Holy Roman Empire where the Habsburgs did not exercise territorial lordship (Landesherrschaft). A further seven privy councillors were Italian. In addition two councillors were Spanish and there was one each of Scottish, French, and Netherlandish origin.34 During the middle of the seventeenth century, the Privy Council—apart from the Hungarian magnate families who rose to prominence after mid-century—was made up of members from whom the Austrian high nobility of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries descended. The ideal of the Habsburg Monarchy was found in few other institutions or groups; it appears to have been ‘a body made up of members of various national groups tightly bound together by bonds of kinship and service of the State’.35 From the 1660s until 1705, the 38 men who were called to the Privy Conference, the successor to the Privy Council, came from 33 families, of which slightly more than half had the majority of their possessions in the Bohemian lands and the others had theirs in the Austrian ones. Not a single man came from a territory of the Holy Roman Empire outside the Monarchia Austriaca, and, oddly enough, no Hungarian belonged to the inner circle of Emperor Leopold I—notwithstanding that already Leo- pold’s contemporary historians devoted much space to the Turkish wars that took place on Hungarian territory and to the inner affairs of the Hun- garian kingdom.36 With the exception of the non-represented kingdom of

32 Maximilian Lanzinner, ‘Zur Sozialstruktur der Geheimen Ratskollegien im 17. Jahr- hundert’, in Winfried Becker and Werner Chrobak (ed.), Staat, Kultur, Politik. Beiträge zur Geschichte Bayerns und des Katholizismus. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Dieter Albrecht (Kallmünz/Opf., 1992), 71–88, at 76 f. 33 Henry F(rederick) Schwarz and John I. Coddington, ‘The Social Structure of the Imperial Privy Council, 1600 to 1674’, in Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council in the Seven- teenth Century (Cambridge, MA, 1943), 395–410, at 398. 34 Ibid., 402 f. Slightly different figures on the regional origin of the imperial privy councillors between 1600 and 1674 are provided by Lanzinner, ‘Zur Sozialstruktur’, 74, Übersicht 1. 35 Schwarz and Coddington, ‘The Social Structure of the Imperial Privy Council’, 410. 36 Johann Burchard Mencken, Leben und Thaten Sr. Majestät, des Römischen Käysers Leopold des Ersten (Leipzig, 1707), e.g., devotes 45 % (412 pages) of the space to the Turk- ish Wars, the diplomatic relations between Vienna and Istanbul, and the conclusion of peace between the emperor and the sultan; 13.4 % (123 pages) are devoted to the inner affairs of Hungary; but only 5 % (46 pages) to the Holy Roman Empire. On the other hand, 178 thomas winkelbauer

Hungary, the members of the Privy Conference, although they were not primarily chosen on national or regional criteria, also fulfilled ‘a certain coordinating function between the court and the provinces’.37 In 1559, after Ferdinand I had been proclaimed emperor, the Austrian Chancellery, created in 1526–7, was united with the Imperial Chancellery that was dependent on the archbishop and elector of Mainz in his function as imperial arch-chancellor. For the next two generations the imperial vice-chancellor, who was, with the approbation of the emperor, appointed by the arch-chancellor, was almost always at the same time Austrian court chancellor and member of the Emperor’s Privy Council. An important symptom of the gradual ‘outgrowth of the Austrian lands from the Holy Roman Empire’ was the renewed formation of an independent Austrian Court Chancellery in 1620.38 Almost at the same time—during the reign of Ferdinand II (1619–37)—the Reichshofrat, i.e. the highest judicial institution of the Holy Roman Empire located at the imperial court, lost its territorial competence for the Austrian hereditary lands and turned into an instance for ‘matters of the Empire’ strictly speaking and for matters concerning imperial Italy (Reichsitalien).39

Mencke(n), a Saxon Protestant (1674–1732), explicitly lauded Leopold’s ‘prudent reign in the Empire’ (‘Kluge Reichs-Regierung’): ibid., 912 (marginal note). Cf. Notker Hammerstein, Jus und Historie. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des historischen Denkens an deutschen Univer- sitäten im späten 17. und im 18. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 1972), 279–84; Neue Deutsche Bio- graphie, vol. 17 (1994), 34 f. 37 Stefan Sienell, Die Geheime Konferenz unter Kaiser Leopold I. Personelle Strukturen und Methoden zur politischen Entscheidungsfindung am Wiener Hof (Frankfurt a.M., 2001), 219. 38 Thomas Fellner and Heinrich Kretschmayr, Die österreichische Zentralverwaltung. Abteilung I: Von Maximilian I. bis zur Vereinigung der Österreichischen und Böhmischen Hofkanzlei, 1749. Vol. 1: Geschichtliche Übersicht (Vienna, 1907), 139–60, 174–210; Heinrich Kretschmayr, ‘Das deutsche Reichsvicekanzleramt’, Archiv für österreichische Geschichte, 84 (1898), 381–502, at 401–54; Lothar Gross, Die Geschichte der deutschen Reichshofkanzlei von 1559 bis 1806 (Vienna, 1933), 5–76, 178–84, 341–4; id., ‘Der Kampf zwischen Reichskan- zlei und österreichischer Hofkanzlei um die Führung der auswärtigen Geschäfte’, Histo- rische Vierteljahrschrift, 22 (1924–5), 279–312; Oswald von Gschließer, ‘Das Beamtentum der hohen Reichsbehörden (Reichshofkanzlei, Reichskammergericht, Reichshofrat, Hof- kriegsrat)’, in Günther Franz (ed.), Beamtentum und Pfarrerstand (Limburg/Lahn, 1972), 1–26, at 4–7; Hans Sturmberger, ‘Vom Weißen Berg zur Pragmatischen Sanktion. Der Staat Österreich von 1620 bis 1740’ [1961], repr. in id., Land ob der Enns und Österreich. Aufsätze und Vorträge (Linz, 1979), 211–45, at 219 f. 39 Wolfgang Sellert, Prozeßgrundsätze und Stilus Curiae am Reichshofrat im Vergleich mit den gesetzlichen Grundlagen des reichskammergerichtlichen Verfahrens (Aalen, 1973), 64 f.; Klueting, Das Reich und Österreich, 39. Notwithstanding the exemption privileges of the dukes of Austria, starting with the Privilegium Minus of 1156, both the Reichskam- mergericht and the Reichshofrat at the beginning had jurisdiction over the whole Empire, including the Habsburg hereditary lands: Wolfgang Sellert, Über die Zuständigkeitsabgren- zung von Reichshofrat und Reichskammergericht, insbesondere in Strafsachen und Angele- genheiten der freiwilligen Gerichtsbarkeit (Aalen, 1965), 22–36. separation & symbiosis: the habsburg monarchy & the empire 179

The Austrian Court Chancellery from its foundation developed into the bureaucratic nucleus of Austrian statehood, into the centre of the princely administrative apparatus of the Austrian hereditary lands, gradually moving away from the Empire. The imperial estates as well as the estates of the separate Austrian lands had no influence whatsoever on the Chan- cellery. The Austrian court chancellors were public servants, depending only on the emperor and serving primarily the interests of the Habsburg ‘composite state’ in Central Europe. Notwithstanding the protests of the imperial arch-chancellors and the imperial vice-chancellors, since the 1620s imperial patents of nobility were executed by the Austrian and the Bohemian Court Chancelleries. The Aus- trian Court Chancellery was not only responsible for the correspondence concerning the Austrian lands, but also for all matters of the ruling family, i.e. the correspondence with the Spanish court and the collateral line in Tyrol, as well as for the political correspondence with the Republic of Ven- ice, the Swiss Confederation, the permanent Reichstag (since its coming into being in 1663) and the Austrian legation in Regensburg. Full responsibility for diplomatic relations and correspondence with the Ottoman Empire after 1610 was in the hands of the Hofkriegsrat. Relatively late, only between 1710 and 1730, the correspondence with imperial envoys in Rome, Paris, London, Moscow, Warsaw, Copenhagen and Stockholm, and partly even with imperial estates such as Brandenburg, was withdrawn from the Imperial Chancellery. Step by step the Imperial Chancellery was pushed away from the foreign policy of the emperors and henceforth dealt only with the matters of the so-called narrower Empire.40 The contours of the foreign policy of the emperors, as well as of their imperial policy (Reichspolitik) which more and more became a part of the former, were modelled in the Imperial Privy Council and the Privy Con- ference, respectively, or in specialized commissions or by the emperor himself on the basis of written votes of commissions and deputed councillors. The Austrian court-chancellor Johann Paul Hocher, who took up his office in 1667, ensured that the emperor’s diplomats without exception, i.e. including those who corresponded both with the Austrian Court Chancellery and with the Imperial Chancellery, sent reports concerning

40 Peter Meienberger, Johann Rudolf Schmid zum Schwarzenhorn als kaiserlicher Resi- dent in Konstantinopel in den Jahren 1629–43. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der diplomatischen Beziehungen zwischen Österreich und der Türkei in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts (Bern/Frankfurt a.M., 1973), 10 f.; Thomas Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht. Länder und Untertanen des Hauses Habsburg im konfessionellen Zeitalter (2 vols, Vienna, 2003), i. 395. 180 thomas winkelbauer the actual arcana of imperial policy only to the Court Chancellery.41 After Hocher’s death in 1683 the Imperial Chancellery for some decades recu- perated parts of its influence upon imperial policy. But after about 1710 the responsibility for the imperial policy of the emperors (the kaiserliche Reichspolitik) almost exclusively lay in the hands of the same councillors who were first of all responsible for Austrian interests and for the ‘domestic policy’ of the Habsburg Monarchy.42 In the last quarter of the sixteenth century the postal enterprise of the barons of Taxis on the soil of the Holy Roman Empire, until then subsidized by the Spanish crown, developed into an imperial postal system (Reichspost or kaiserliche Reichspost).43 In 1596 Emperor Rudolf II appointed the royal Spanish postmaster-general, Leonhard von Taxis, residing in Brussels, ‘supreme postmaster-general in the Holy Empire and the Netherlands’ (‘Obrister general postmaister im Heiligen Reich und Niderlanden’) and proclaimed a postal monopoly in the Empire. In the following year the emperor declared the postal system on the soil of the Holy Roman Empire an imperial regale (‘unser hochbefreites Kayserliches Post-Regal’).44 In 1615, eventually, Emperor Matthias invested the Brussels

41 Cf., e.g., Klaus Müller, Das kaiserliche Gesandtschaftswesen im Jahrhundert nach dem Westfälischen Frieden, 1648–1740 (Bonn, 1976), 18 f. 42 Ibid., 24–32; Schmidt, ‘Angst vor dem Kaiser?’, 345. For the Austrian court-chancellors of the seventeenth century, see Schwarz, Imperial Privy Council; Sienell, Geheime Konferenz; Harald Tersch, ‘Prudenter, syncere, constanter. Kanzler Verdenberg, 1582–1648, und sein “Giornale” ’, Unsere Heimat. Zeitschrift für Landeskunde von Niederösterreich, 66 (1995), 82–111; id., Österreichische Selbstzeugnisse des Spätmittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit, 1400–1650. Eine Darstellung in Einzelbeiträgen (Vienna, 1998), 634–46; Tomáš Knoz, Državy Karla staršího ze Žerotína po Bílé hoře. Osoby, příběhy, struktury (Brno, 2001), 318–29; Heinz Noflatscher, ‘ “Freundschaft” im Absolutismus. Hofkanzler Johann Paul Hocher und die Standeserhebungen Kaiser Leopolds I.’, in Sabine Weiß (ed.), Historische Blickpunkte. Festschrift für Johann Rainer (Innsbruck, 1988), 469–504; Hans Schmidt, ‘Theodor Altet Reichsgraf von Stratmann, ca. 1637–93. Eine Diplomatenkarriere des Barock’ [1982], repr. in id., Persönlichkeit, Politik und Konfession im Europa des Ancien Régime. Aufsätze und Vorträge zur Geschichte der Frühen Neuzeit (Hamburg, 1995), 231–58; cf. also, very briefly, Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht, i. 396. After 1648 a system of permanent imperial envoys (residents) in the Empire came into being. Basic information in Müller, Gesandtschaftswesen, esp. 60–85, and Ludwig Bittner and Lothar Groß (ed.), Repertorium der diplomatischen Vertreter aller Länder seit dem Westfälischen Frieden, 1648. Vol. 1: 1648– 1715 (Oldenburg i.O./Berlin, 1936), 123–74. 43 Wolfgang Behringer, Thurn und Taxis. Die Geschichte ihrer Post und ihrer Unterneh- men (Munich/Zurich, 1990), 13–52, 192–203; Martin Dallmeier, Quellen zur Geschichte des europäischen Postwesens 1501–1806 (3 vols, Kallmünz, 1977–87), at i. 49–55, ii. 3–5 (nos. 1 and 3), 9 f. (no. 11). 44 Dallmeier, Quellen, ii. 25 (no. 50), 39 (no. 83 f.), 58–60 (no. 124), 79 (no. 169), 97 (no. 210), 108 (no. 238), 109 (no. 241), 137 (no. 312), 140 (no. 321), 141 (no. 323), 182 (no. 394), 237 (no. 474); id. (ed.), 500 Jahre Post. Thurn und Taxis. Katalog der Ausstellung anläßlich separation & symbiosis: the habsburg monarchy & the empire 181

Taxis family with the imperial postal system as a hereditary fief.45 This system was in the long run integrated into the constitutional structures of the Empire and definitely established as an imperial institution, organiza- tionally under the control of the Imperial Chancellery.46 The reform of the postal system, implemented by Emperor Ferdinand II in 1622 in his own territories, was an important element of his policy of separating the rising Habsburg Monarchy from the Empire and of stronger administrative bonds and a growing integration of his lands. In 1615 the sphere of responsibility of the imperial postmaster-general in the hereditary charter of fealty (Erblehensbrief ) for the Taxis was explicitly restricted to the area of the Empire, excluding the Austrian and Bohemian Lands and the court post (Hofpost). A few years before, in 1612, the office of the Lower Austrian postmaster had been united with that of the imperial supreme court postmaster (Obersthofpostmeisteramt). In 1622, the then holder of these offices (Hans Jakob Magno), sold the supreme court postmastership for Austria, Hungary and Bohemia as well as the Lower Austrian postmastership to the Inner Austrian court postmaster Hans Christoph von Paar. Paar’s career had started at the Graz court—just like the careers of Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg, Ferdinand’s imperial high steward (Obersthofmeister) and president of the Privy Council, and of Johann Baptist Verda von Verdenberg, the first head of the newly created Austrian Court Chancellery. In May 1623 Hans Christoph von Paar took over in his new role as Obersthofpostmeister. Thus the Inner Austrian, the Lower Austrian and the Bohemian postal systems were united in his hands. The next year he received a hereditary charter of fealty for the Obersthofpost- meisteramt and the postal systems in Hungary and Bohemia as well as in the incorporated lands of both kingdoms. His new offices, however, der 500jährigen Wiederkehr der Anfänge der Post in Mitteleuropa, 1490–1990 (Regensburg, 1990), 332, 338; Ludwig Kalmus, Weltgeschichte der Post, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des deutschen Sprachgebietes (Vienna, 1937), 171–3; Wolfgang Behringer, Im Zeichen des Merkur. Reichspost und Kommunikationsrevolution in der frühen Neuzeit (Göttingen, 2003), 174–6. 45 ‘Verfassungsgeschichtlich war dies ein hochrangiges Ereignis, wurde hier doch ein noch junges Reichsregal auf Dauer an einen Privatmann vergeben. [. . .] Die Verleihung des Erblehens bedeutete den Beginn für eine in Deutschland bislang beispiellose Expansion des Postwesens’: Behringer, Im Zeichen des Merkur, 185. 46 Ibid., 129, 136–76; id., Thurn und Taxis, 58–62, 68–77; id., ‘Fugger und Taxis. Der Anteil Augsburger Kaufleute an der Entstehung des europäischen Kommunikationssys- tems’, in Johannes Burkhardt (ed.), Augsburger Handelshäuser im Wandel des historischen Urteils (Berlin, 1996), 241–8, at 247 f.; Martin Dallmeier, ‘Die kaiserliche Reichspost und das fürstliche Haus Thurn und Taxis, 1490–1806’, in id. (ed.), 500 Jahre Post, 22–46, at 31–4; Kalmus, Weltgeschichte der Post, 109–48. 182 thomas winkelbauer remained—contrary to the imperial post (Reichspostgeneralat)—an enterprise that was strongly subsidized by public funds.47 The conquest of the former Ottoman parts of the Hungary kingdom and of the principality of Transylvania in the decade after the second Ottoman siege of Vienna (1683) and their incorporation into the Habsburg Monar- chy affected also the Hungarian postal system that so far had primarily served to maintain the communication between Vienna and the imperial generals, commanding the Habsburg troops fighting against the Ottomans in Hungary and Croatia, and the commanding officers of the Hungarian fortresses as well as between Vienna and the Hungarian authorities in Pressburg (Bratislava) and Kaschau (Košice).48 The hereditary enfeoffment of Hans Christoph von Paar with the supreme court postmaster’s office in 1624 had explicitly included Hungary too, but in practice the direction of the Hungarian postal system remained with the postmaster of Pressburg and the Royal Hungarian Chamber, which also resided in Pressburg.49 In 1690 the brothers Karl Joseph and Joseph Ignaz, princes of Paar, obtained hereditary control of the complete Hungarian postal system. From that time the postal systems in the Austrian, Bohemian and Hungarian Lands—with the exception of Silesia, Tyrol and Further Aus- tria—were a hereditary fief in the possession of the house of Paar (until their acquisition by the state [Inkamerierung] in 1722).50 After 1615 the imperial post, managed by the house of (Thurn and) Taxis, that after the middle of the seventeenth century was able to defend its monopoly only in Upper Germany and the Rhineland on the one hand, and the postal system in the Austrian, Bohemian and Hungarian lands, i.e. in the rising Hab- sburg Monarchy, managed by the house of Paar, on the other hand, were large-scale enterprises operating independently. The postal system made an important contribution to the gradual moving away or ‘outgrowth’ of the Austrian Monarchy from the Empire, or, in other words, it was an integral part of this process of separation. Historians of the Holy Roman Empire largely agree that the Peace of Westphalia launched a ‘dualist development of emperor and Empire’, and

47 ‘Es trat [. . .] der einzigartige Fall ein, daß der Lehensträger wohl alle Vorteile des Lehens genießen konnte, daß aber alle Unkosten aus dem Postbetrieb vom Lehensherrn zu tragen waren.’ Kalmus, Weltgeschichte der Post, 199. 48 Rüdiger Wurth, ‘Das Preßburger Postmeisteramt und die Familie Paar im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, in Wolfgang Gürtler and Gerhard J. Winkler (ed.), Forscher—Gestalter— Vermittler. Festschrift Gerald Schlag (Eisenstadt, 2001), 473–99. 49 Ibid., 490–2. 50 Kalmus, Weltgeschicht der Post, 292–302. separation & symbiosis: the habsburg monarchy & the empire 183 that the emperor henceforth more clearly than before (especially than in the sixteenth century) faced the Empire as the ruler of the Austrian and Bohemian lands and of the kingdom of Hungary.51 The hereditary lands became, as Volker Press put it, ‘more and more the nucleus of a particular empire of the Habsburgs that differed from the Holy Roman Empire and became a European great power’.52 In my opinion this is not a question of fundamentally new elements in the relationship between ‘emperor and Empire’, but only of a reinforcement of a long-term trend. In this chapter I have focused on the first term of my title (‘separation’), but no doubt there was also a great deal of ‘symbiosis’. The emperor was the most important element of the imperial constitution. The early modern constitutional history of the Holy Roman Empire was dominated by the basic conflict between the emperor and the imperial estates about a more centralistic or a more federal design of the imperial constitution, or, to put it crudely, by the alternative of monarchy vs. a union of princes. At the same time the Empire as a whole (‘emperor and Empire’) was able to act only on the basis of consensus and compromise between the emperor and the imperial estates. The alternation of conflict and consensus in the decades starting with the Diet of Worms in 1495 led to a gradual institutional development of the Empire and to constitutional arrangements in the fields of public peace (Landfrieden), warfare, jurisdiction and public finance, as well as to the legalization of two, eventually three, confessions in the Empire. These central subjects of any history of the Holy Roman Empire are dealt with in other chapters of this book.53 The ‘modern’ fiscal-military state on the soil of the Holy Roman Empire came into being at the level of the territories, not at that of the Empire. In the long run the political future belonged to the major territorial states such as Brandenburg-Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and, not least, the Habsburg Monarchy, and not to the ‘pre-modern’ and ‘pre-state’ political system of the Empire. Due to the personal identity of emperor and multiple territorial prince, the Habsburg Monarchy in this process occupies a special position. In the resulting confusion of roles, it seems, the emperors more and more tended to give preference to their Monarchy than to the Empire.

51 Klueting, Das Reich und Österreich, 33 and passim. 52 Press, ‘Die Erblande und das Reich’, 86. 53 Cf., e.g., Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, Das Heilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation vom Ende des Mittelalters bis 1806 (Munich, 2006).

Section three

Cores and peripheries

State-Building within the Empire: the Cases of Brandenburg-Prussia and Savoy-Sardinia*

Sven Externbrink

Ever since the consolidation of the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, scholars have never really stopped debating its character. Beginning with Jean Bodin and Samuel Pufendorf, the debate continues today with Georg Schmidt’s description of the Empire as a ‘complementary empire-state’ (komplementärer Reichs-Staat). Heinz Schilling dissents from this interpretation, depicting the Holy Roman Empire as a ‘partly modernized imperial system’ (teil modernisiertes Reichssystem). The present article does not seek to intensify this dispute, but bases its reasoning on the idea of the Empire as a political system.1 Generally speaking, a system is a whole in which the individual parts interact in complicated ways such that, because of the interdependence of the parts, changes in one part affect the entire system. The system may have an impact on the surroundings and vice versa. However, the system is still separate from these surroundings and remains a system. The outstanding characteristic of the political system of the Holy Roman Empire was the dualism of stability and dynamism.2 This article will focus mainly on the development of two parts of this system and their impact on the total system rather than the system as a whole.

* I would like to thank Susanne Zapf, Wetter and Brendan Simms, Cambridge for their help in translating this text. A first draft of this contribution was presented to the Habili- tationskolloquium of the department of history at the University of Marburg on 23 July 2003. I am especially grateful to Prof. Robert Evans of Oxford and the organizers of the colloquium ‘The Holy Roman Empire 1495–1806’ for their invitation to present this essay to a larger public. 1 Cf. Georg Schmidt, Geschichte des Alten Reiches. Staat und Nation in der Frühen Neuzeit, 1495–1806 (Munich, 1999); Heinz Schilling, ‘Reichs-Staat und frühneuzeitliche Nation der Deutschen oder teilmodernisiertes Reichssystem. Überlegungen zu Charakter und Aktu- alität des Alten Reiches’, Historische Zeitschrift, 272 (2001), 377–95. Schmidt’s thesis is discussed in Matthias Schnettger (ed.), Imperium Romanum—irregulare corpus—Teutscher Reichs-Staat. Das Alte Reich im Verständnis der Zeitgenossen und der Historiographie (Mainz, 2002). 2 Bernd Roeck, Reichssystem und Reichsherkommen. Die Diskussion über die Staatlichkeit des Reiches in der politischen Publizistik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1984), 31. 188 sven externbrink

One of the main characteristics of the imperial system (Reich-System) was the broad range of size among its constituent parts, ranging from the imperial villages (Reichsdörfer) to the large imperial estates (Reichsstände), often with possessions beyond the borders of the Reich, such as the electorate of Brandenburg-Prussia, which became a European great power in the second half of the eighteenth century. Another important characteristic of the early modern imperial system was its participation in the European process of state building on the level of its individual parts. As we know, the state-building process triggered many conflicts in the territories and within the imperial system. The head and the subordinate elements of the Empire engaged in a long and bloody struggle to clarify the relationship between the estates’ autonomy and the Empire or the emperor’s power over the estates. Only in 1648 were solid and durable solutions established. An intensification of state organization can be observed especially in the territories; however, not all estates participated with the same intensity. At this point we must shift our focus from the Empire to the concrete aspects of the investigation in question. Why compare Brandenburg- Prussia and Savoy-Sardinia? This comparison has often been made, but never systematically explored. The idea that the Savoyards are the Prus- sians of Italy is often cited in accounts of Italian history. For example, according to the German historian Rudolf Lill, beginning in the seventeenth century, the duchy of Savoy (from 1721 the kingdom of Sardinia) developed as a state and military power comparable to Prussia.3 The role of both states in the foundation of the respective nation states is always mentioned in this context.4 The procedures were similar in Italy and Ger- many. In his essay on the history of the state and the nation in Europe, Hagen Schulze offers the following description: ‘Two modern power states in the north . . . only partly belonging to the nation, in both cases a Bonapartist statesman who did not hesitate to appeal to the passions of the masses in order to attain his objective of unification, and finally, the alliance between this statesman and the liberal national movement after the establishment of the state, which laid the foundation of the new

3 Rudolf Lill, Geschichte Italiens vom 16. Jahrhundert bis zu den Anfängen des Faschis- mus (Darmstadt, 1980), 3; Arne Karsten, review of Tobias Mörschel, Buona Amicitia? Die römisch-savoyischen Beziehungen unter Paul V., 1605–21). Studien zur frühneuzeitlichen Mik- ropolitik in Italien (Mainz, 2002), in Sehepunkte 3, no. 4 (15 April 2003), http://www.Sehep- unkte.historicum.net/2003/04/3805329962.html. 4 Theodor Schieder, ‘Typologie und Erscheinungsformen des Nationalstaats in Europa,’ in his Nationalismus und Nationalstaat. Studien zum nationalen Problem im modernen Europa (Göttingen, 1991), 65–86, at 69. state-building within the empire 189 nation-states.’5 In his 1859 review of Cesare Balbo’s history of Italy, Alfred von Reumont stated that the sovereigns of both states obtained the royal dignity in quick succession, defending it with all the means at their disposal and extending their powers. Aside from this evident parallel in the age of nationalism, another statement merits consideration, namely that the early modern development of Savoy could be compared to that of Prussia.6 In his Italian History (1859) Cesare Balbo, who was prime minister of Sardinia in 1848, sought to assign Savoy-Sardinia a historic mission to assume a leading role in the Risorgimento.7 Thus it should be the historic mission of the state of Savoy to play a leading role in the national unification of Italy. A similar interpretation may be found in Prussia at the same time. It was Johann Gustav Droysen who equated Prussia with Macedonia in his biography of Alexander the Great published in 1833. Just as Alexander and the Macedonians had unified Greece by force, it was the task of Prussia to unify Germany. In his 1855 Geschichte der preußischen Politik, Droysen argues that since the fifteenth century, the Prussian sovereigns had conducted a coherent policy in line with Prussia’s German mission. He was convinced that the completion of the German nation-state by Prussia was part of the divine plan for the world order.8 Such constructions of continuity and projections of historic missions aside, we should at least attempt to compare the history of the two states systematically. An exhaustive reconstruction of the complex course of the state-building process in Savoy and Brandenburg is naturally impossible in this context.9 Instead, the following

5 ‘Zwei moderne Machtstaaten im Norden . . . der Nation eigentlich nur teilweise ange- hörig, [in] beiden Fällen der bonapartistische Staatsmann, der den Appell an die Mas- senleidenschaften nicht scheute, um sein Einigungsziel zu erreichen; und schließlich das Bündnis zwischen diesem Staatsmann und der liberalen Nationalbewegung nach der Staatsgründung, die innenpolitische Basis der neuen Nationalstaaten’: Hagen Schulze, Staat und Nation in der europäischen Geschichte (2nd edn, Munich 1999), 238–43. 6 Alfred von Reumont, ‘Balbos italienische Geschichte. Das Haus Savoyen und seine Politik,’ in his Beiträge zur italienischen Geschichte, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1859), 287–327, at 301. Cf. Peter Stadler, Cavour. Italiens Reichsgründer (Munich, 2001), 20. 7 Dino Carpanetto and Guiseppe Ricuperati, Italy in the Age of Reason 1685–1789 (London/New York, 1987), 317. 8 Schulze, Staat und Nation, 180, 184. On comparisons between Prussia and Macedo- nia, cf. S.A. Thomas, Makedonien und Preußen. Die Geschichte einer Analogie (Egelsbach, 1994). On Droysen, see Wolfgang Hardtwig, ‘Von Preußens Aufgabe in Deutschland zu Deutschlands Aufgabe in der Welt. Liberalismus und borussianisches Geschichtsbild zwischen Revolution und Imperialismus’, in his Geschichtskultur und Wissenschaft (Munich, 1990), 103–60. 9 For a recent general survey of the principles of early modern state-building, see Wolf- gang Reinhard, Geschichte der Staatsgewalt (2nd edn, Munich, 2000). 190 sven externbrink aspects will be explored in order to give a representative impression of the course of the basic state-building process in the two states. Firstly, the political contexts of Savoy and Brandenburg will be discussed together with some general aspects of, and preconditions for, state-building. The focus must be on the Empire’s role in the individual development of both states. Secondly, the formation of the armies in Savoy and Brandenburg will be dealt with in detail as one example of the growth of state power (Wachstum der Staatsgewalt in Wolfgang Reinhard’s phrase), since the military was considered to be the ‘motor of the machinery of state’ (Schwungrad an der Staatsmaschine) as Otto Hintze put it.10 The material needs of the rapidly growing military arm decisively shaped the economic, administrative and fiscal development of the state.11 At the same time, the power and impact of the military permitted sovereigns to improve discipline at home. This attempt at a comparative history of the two states must necessarily refer to the wider context of the state-building process, that is, to the ways in which both states were anchored in the emerging state system. In general I shall focus more on the development of Savoy than Prussia because, in contrast to the better-known Prussian case, the fate of the duchy of Savoy and later kingdom of Sardinia is still terra incognita for historians not specialized in Italian history.12 * Brandenburg-Prussia and Savoy-Sardinia represent two typical examples of early modern composite monarchies.13 Prussia developed out of the Mark Brandenburg to the east and the west; only in the nineteenth

10 Otto Hintze, ‘Geist und System der preußischen Verwaltung um 1740,’ in Acta Borus- sica. Denkmäler der preußischen Staatsverwaltung im 18. Jahrhundert, Behördenorganisation und allgemeine Staatsverwaltung Preußens im 18. Jahrhundert, vol. 6, pt i (Berlin, 1901), 23. Burkhart R. Kroener, ‘ “Das Schwungrad der Staatsmaschine”? Die Bedeutung der bewaff- neten Macht in der europäischen Geschichte der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Kroener and Ralf Pröve (ed.), Krieg und Frieden. Militär und Gesellschaft in der Frühen Neuzeit (Paderborn, 1996), 1–23, at 1. 11 Ralf Pröve, ‘Vom Schmuddelkind zur anerkannten Subdisziplin? Die “neue Militärge- schichte” der Frühen Neuzeit. Perspektiven, Entwicklungen, Probleme’, Geschichte in Wis- senschaft und Unterricht, 51 (2000), 597–612, at 602. 12 This is especially true of research on absolutism. Italian historians have long considered Savoy to be an absolutist archetype. See the overview in Christopher Storrs, War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy, 1690–1720 (Cambridge, 1999), 17. 13 John H. Elliott, ‘A Europe of Composite Monarchies,’ Past & Present, 137 (1992), 48–71; Reinhard, Staatsgewalt, 44–7. For a portrait of Prussia as a ‘composite monarchy’, cf. Jürgen Kloosterhuis, Bauern, Bürger und Soldaten. Quellen zur Sozialisation des Militärsystems im preußischen Westfalen, 1713–1803. Regesten (Münster, 1992), pp. xiii–xv. state-building within the empire 191 century did a coherent and interrelated territory develop, which extended from the lower Rhine to the Baltic. In contrast to the other middle Italian states, the duchy of Savoy did not develop out of a city-republic. Around 1700, Savoy consisted of the territories of the present-day French depart- ments of Savoie and Haute-Savoie. Beyond the western Alps the rule of the Savoy dynasty extended to the river Sesia in the west, while in the south it bordered the republic of Genoa, which controlled access to the sea. The duchy possessed Mediterranean ports in the enclave of Oneglia and the duchy of Nice. Its possession also included the rather inaccessible duchy of Aosta in the Alps. It was decisive for the territorial development of both states—Bran- denburg even more so than Savoy—that both were located in an area of small and tiny sovereign units. As regards their affiliation to the Empire, they belonged to a subsystem of the state system that was not dominated by any central power. They thus had relatively good opportunities to consolidate their dominion and expand by incorporating weaker neighbours. At least after the 1601 treaty of Lyons, which confirmed the losses of the provinces of Bresse, Bugey and Gex, Savoy could expand only within the territory of Italy. What had once been the dynasty’s original state became peripheral. The transfer in 1563 of the dukes’ main residence from Cham- béry to Turin heralded this development.14 Affiliation with the Holy Roman Empire was significant for the self- conception of both the Hohenzollern and Savoy dynasties. The Hohenzol lerns of Brandenburg had been electors since 1415 and enjoyed a decisive position in the constitutional structures of the Empire. It is impossible to provide a general survey of Prussia’s imperial policy (Reichspolitik), which remains to be written,15 but Berlin was keenly interested in imperial affairs, especially in the second half of the seventeenth and the first third of the eighteenth century. Thanks to the opportune shift of alliances from Louis XIV to William of Orange and Emperor Leopold I, the Great Elector Frederick William and his son Frederick III (later King Freder- ick I) were able to maintain and strengthen Prussia’s position within the

14 Anthony L. Cardoza and Geoffrey W. Symcox, A History of Turin (Turin, 2006), 114–20; Martha D. Pollak, Turin, 1564–1680. Urban Design, Military Culture and the Creation of the Absolutist Capital (Chicago/London, 1991). 15 Cf. Anton Schindling, ‘Der Große Kurfürst und das Reich,’ in Ein sonderbares Licht in Teutschland. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Großen Kurfürsten von Brandenburg, 1640–88, ed. Gerd Heinrich (Berlin, 1990), 59–74; Volker Press, ‘Friedrich der Große als Reichspolitiker’, in Friedrich der Große, Franken und das Reich, ed. Heinz Duchhardt (Cologne/Vienna, 1986), 25–6. 192 sven externbrink

Empire and as a middle-sized actor within the emerging European state system. Only in the second half of the eighteenth century did the Empire lose its importance for Prussia. Frederick the Great pursued a rather negative policy towards the Empire. His leadership in the League of Princes (Fürstenbund) in 1785 was based on Prussian state interests rather than promoting a reform of the Empire’s constitution.16 Prussian indifference towards the Empire paved the way to the Peace of Basel in 1795 when Prussia was granted compensations in form of secularization. In the long term, therefore, Prussia benefited from the dissolution of the Empire. The duchy of Savoy occupied a special position within the constitutional structures of Reichsitalien. As individual vassals of the emperor, the dukes were integrated into the Kreisverfassung, the constitution of the imperial circles, via their ancestral territory. As a member of the imperial circle of the Upper Rhine (Oberrheinischer Reichskreis), the duke of Savoy had a seat and a vote at the imperial diet, although the duchy was never a very active member.17 In the Middle Ages the Savoyard rulers had already cultivated their good connections to the emperor—which were reciprocated with nominations to vicars of the Reich (by Charles IV),18 and the elevation of the counts to dukes (by Emperor Sigismund in 1416).19 During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, legates of the duke regularly participated in the Reichstag.20 Up to 1806 the dukes of Savoy never renounced their membership of the Empire and—in contrast to other vassals of the

16 ‘Negative Reichspolitik’: Press, ‘Friedrich der Große als Reichspolitiker’, 54. 17 Cf. Winfried Dotzauer, Die deutschen Reichskreise in der Verfassung des Alten Reiches und ihr Eigenleben, 1500–1806 (Darmstadt, 1989), esp. 237. 18 For a recent survey of the institutions of Reichsitalien, see Matthias Schnettger, ‘Das Alte Reich und Italien in der Frühen Neuzeit. Ein institutionengeschichtlicher Überblick’, Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 79 (1999), 344–420; on the vicariate, see ibid., 381–6. On Reichsitalien, see Schnettger and Marcello Verga (ed.), L’impero e l’Italia nella prima età moderna. Das Reich und Italien in der Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin/Bologna, 2006). 19 Johann Friedrich Böhmer, Regesta Imperii VIII: Die Regesten des Kaiserreiches unter Kaiser Karl IV, 1346–78, (Innsbruck, 1877; repr. Hildesheim, 1968), no. 5155; Giovanni Tabacco, Lo Stato sabaudo nel Sacro Romano Imperio (Turin, 1939); Réjane Brondy et al., La Savoie de l’an mille à la Réforme (Rennes, 1985), 299–310. Emperor Sigismund invested Count Amadeus VIII with the ducal title in 1416. The latter (1391–1451) was the most important ruler of Savoy in the Middle Ages, elected as Pope Felix V in 1439. On the history of Savoy in the Middle Ages, see Eugene L. Cox, The Eagles of Savoy. The House of Savoy in the Thirteenth Century (Princeton, NJ, 1973), and id., The Green Count of Savoy. Amadeus VI and Transalpine Savoy in the Fourteenth Century (Princeton, NJ, 1967). 20 Maximilian Lanzinner (ed.), Der Reichstag von Speyer 1572 (2 vols, Göttingen, 1988), ii.1106–7, 1253–4. In 1619, Duke Charles Emanuel I was a candidate not only for the Bohe- mian crown, but also for the imperial crown. See Ruth Kleinmann, ‘Charles Emanuel of Savoy and the Bohemian Election of 1619’, European Studies Review, 5 (1975), 3–29. state-building within the empire 193

Empire in Italy such as the grand duke of Tuscany, the republic of Genoa, or the duke of Parma-Piacenza—they refrained from insisting on their own sovereignty towards the emperor.21 It was characteristic of Savoyard imperial policy to emphasize their affiliation with the Empire at critical junctures and to exploit imperial institutions, especially the diet, in cases of conflicts with other vassals in Italy. In the war of the Mantuan Succession (1627–30), for example, Duke Charles Emanuel I called on Emperor Ferdinand II in his capacity as feudal lord for support against France.22 In the 1650s, Savoy and Mantua took their dispute over the execution of the articles of the Peace of West- phalia regarding Italy to the imperial diet.23 The outbreak of the Revo- lutionary Wars had a definitive impact on Savoyard imperial patriotism before the invasion of the French army brought about the dissolution of Reichsitalien.24 The extent to which the Holy Roman Empire determined perceptions of the state system in Turin is demonstrated by the Sardinian legation’s preparations for the Congress of Vienna in 1814. In his instructions, the legate Saint-Marsan was exhorted to ensure ‘the preservation of Sardinian rights in the conventions of the German political system should it be reconstructed in the previous or any other form’.25 The significant if not decisive impact of the ‘dynastic’ factor on state- building in the world of the early modern European monarchies can also be demonstrated using the examples of Savoy and Brandenburg-Prussia.26 Between the Reformation and the French Revolution, a succession of extraordinary monarchs ensured not only the conservation of their states

21 Matthias Schnettger, ‘Impero romano—Impero germanico. Italienische Perspektiven auf das Reich in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Imperium Romanum—irregulare corpus—Teutscher Reichs-Staat. Das Alte Reich im Verständnis der Zeitgenossen und der Historiographie, ed. Schnettger (Mainz, 2002), 53–75, at 58. 22 Sven Externbrink, Le Cœur du monde. Frankreich und die norditalienischen Staaten (Mantua, Parma, Savoyen) im Zeitalter Richelieus (Münster, 1999), 95. 23 Andreas Müller, Der Regensburger Reichstag von 1653–4. Eine Studie zur Entwicklung des Alten Reiches nach dem Westfälischen Frieden (Frankfurt, 1992), 325–37. 24 Irénée Lameire, ‘Les dernières survivances de la souverainté du Saint-Empire sur les Etats de la monarchie piémontaise’, Nouvelle revue historique de droit français et étranger, 33 (1909), 26–53, 192–214, at 199–200. Cf. Vittorio Tigrino, ‘Istituzioni imperiali par lo stato sabaudo tra fine dell’antico regime e Restaurazione’, in Schnettger and Verga (ed.), L’impero e l’Italia, 179–240. 25 Cited in German translation in Klaus Müller (ed.), Quellen zur Geschichte des Wiener Kongresses, 1814–15 (Darmstadt, 1986), 80. 26 Robert Oresko, ‘The Marriages of the Nieces of Cardinal Mazarin. Public Policy and Private Strategy in Seventeenth-century Europe’, in Frankreich im Staatensystem der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Rainer Babel (Sigmaringen, 1995), 109–51, at 150; Lucien Bély, La Société des princes, XVIe–XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1999). 194 sven externbrink but also their significant expansion.27 The personalities of the early modern monarchs united the significance of personality and the effects of processes and longue durée structures. The state-building process always required new impulses from individuals.28 In the early modern dynasties’ general jockeying for advantage, the Hohenzollern as well as the Savoyards could celebrate important successes at the beginning of the eighteenth century, when both gained monarchical status in territories outside the Empire’s borders (East Prus- sia, Sicily and in 1720 Sardinia). Both houses gained at least a representative advantage over others, such as Bavaria or Tuscany, whose striving for recognition and royal dignity failed. However, the title could prove its usefulness only in conjunction with a continuous policy of internal and external consolidation. * Brandenburg-Prussia is regarded as the state in which the military constitution and the requirements of the military attained unparalleled importance in early modern Europe. ‘Prussia is an army that keeps a nation’ was a well-known proverb of that time.29 The ratio of army size to population was relatively high compared to other European countries of the eighteenth century. While in France, England, Austria or Russia the army rarely represented more than 1 per cent of the total population, the figure in Prussia was 3.64 per cent in 1740 and in 1760—at the height of the Seven Years War—as much as 7.22 per cent.30 Frederick William I introduced a cantonal system that allowed the state access to a large proportion of the male population outside the cities, who had to serve several months in the

27 Cf. the Great Elector’s admonition to his son, ‘Your only thought should be to their [the many lands of the House of Brandenburg] preservation; conquests when occasion and opportunity [arise].’ [So habt ihr auf deren [der vielen Landen des hauß Brandenburg] Conserva- tion alleine zu gedencken; Conquesten bei occasion vundt gelegenheitt]: Richard Dietrich (ed.), Die politischen Testamente der Hohenzollern (Cologne/Vienna, 1986), 187, 205–6. 28 ‘History sometimes loves to concentrate all at once on a person whom the world henceforth obeys . . . The great individuals represent the coincidence in a single personality of the universal and the particular, the abiding and movement. They summarise states, religions, cultures and crises.’ [Die Geschichte liebt es bisweilen, sich auf einmal in einem Menschen zu verdichten, welchem hierauf die Welt gehorcht . . . Die großen Individuen sind die Coincidenz des Allgemeinen und des Besonderen, des und der Bewegung in Einer Persönlichkeit. Sie resumiren Staaten, Religionen, Culturen und Crisen]. Jacob Burckhardt, reflections on ‘Individuen und das Allgemeine’, in his Über das Studium der Geschichte, ed. Peter Ganz (Munich, 1982), 392. 29 Heinz Duchhardt, Balance of Power und Pentarchie. Internationale Beziehungen, 1700– 85 (Paderborn, 1997), 158. 30 Kroener, ‘ “Das Schwungrad an der Staatsmaschine”?’, 7. state-building within the empire 195 army as conscripts. For the rest of the year they pursued their civil profes- sions as ‘cantonists’. According to a well-known statement by Otto Büsch, this system was the cornerstone of the social militarization of Prussian society that led to the disastrous Prussian-German militarism of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This assertion is contested nowadays because recent research indicates a high permeability of the cantonal system, particularly in the western provinces, and raises grave doubts about the functional correlation between the feudal system and the cantonal system postulated by Büsch.31 Even Büsch’s critics however, concede that we should not underestimate the significance of the cantonal system for Prussia’s rise to great power status.32 In light of the development of the Savoyard military constitution, however, the uniqueness of the Prussian system must be questioned. Faced with the duchy’s exposed geopolitical position between Spain and France, Duke Emanuel-Philibert (1553–80) had already looked for ways to protect his dominions not only from internal conflicts but also against external aggression.33 Owing to the fact that Savoy and Piedmont had been overrun during the wars of the first half of the sixteenth century, the first measures taken aimed to improve the duchy’s defensive forces. To that end Emanuel-Philibert established a network of fortresses in Piedmont after the departure in 1562 and 1572 of the last French forces who had occupied garrisons in the Piedmontese towns of Turin, Chieri, Chiasso, Villanova, Pinerolo and Savigliano following the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559). He hoped that this barrier of strongholds would prevent rapid occupation in case of war.34 Emanuel-Philibert even tried new methods by founding the milizia paesana. He recruited the male population between the ages of eighteen and fifty from four districts expressly created for this purpose (Ivrea, Asti, Piemonte, Nizza). The militia had to be equipped by the communities and the four districts had to make available four regiments. The duke’s

31 Cf. Jürgen Kloosterhuis, ‘Zwischen Aufruhr und Akzeptanz. Zur Ausformung und Einbettung des Kantonsystems in die Wirtschafts- und Sozialstrukturen des preußischen Westfalen’, in Kroener and Pröve (ed.), Krieg und Frieden, 167–90; Hartmut Harnisch, ‘Preußisches Kantonsystem und ländliche Gesellschaft: Das Beispiel der mittleren Kammer departements’, ibid., 137–65, at 146. 32 Cf. Harnisch, ‘Kantonsystem und ländliche Gesellschaft’, 139. 33 Cf. Pier Paolo Merlin, ‘Il Seicento’, in Merlin et al., Il Piemonte sabaudo: Stato e ter- ritorio in età moderna (Turin, 1994), 3–170, at 71–83; Walter Barberis, Le Armi del Principe. La tradizione militare sabaudo (Turin, 1988), and id., ‘Continuité aristocratique et tradition militaire du Piémont de la dynastie de Savoie, XVIe–XIXe siècles’, Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 34 (1987), 353–403. 34 Merlin, ‘Il Seicento’, 74–5. 196 sven externbrink objectives in establishing the militia become clear in the second foundation edict dated 29 December 1560. He declares therein his wish to ‘étab- lir gens de guerre qui soient de nos propres sujets, estimant qu’ils nous seroient plus fidèles et moins facheux à nos autres sujets, outré ce qu’ils ne serviront mercenaries [sic]; mais comme en leurs cas propres pour la defance [sic] et conservation de leur prince naturel et de leur propre patrie.’35 Prior to this, the population of Piedmont had been forbidden to serve as mercenary soldiers for foreign powers.36 The duke himself, however, did not renounce the services of mercenaries. Although the militia turned out to be rather weak militarily,37 this idea proved highly influential. The notion of service and obligation towards the duke rather than the medieval reciprocal obligation of vassals and lords was to be the basis for militia service.38 Victor Amadeus II (1675–1730) revived the principle of military service for his subjects. In order to avoid competition and overlapping recruitment, the regiments to be formed of inhabitants were assigned to certain provinces. Because local administrations were responsible for selecting the soldiers, the families and clients of the provincial elites were spared. This massive intervention by the central power into what was normally rather autonomous local life evoked resistance, evident particularly in attempts to evade service. Victor Amadeus, however, sought to attract people to the regiments with numerous privileges such as tax exemption and high payments.39 This dualism between the obligations of inhabitants and the recruitment of mercenaries characterized military organization not only in Savoy but also in eighteenth-century Prussia. Especially in times of conflict, both states depended on subsidies and the troops of allied nations to defend their territories40 as well as ‘to escape from a subordinate role in imperial and European politics’.41

35 Quoted in Merlin, ‘Il Seicento’, 76. Barberis, Armi del Principe, 20. 36 Edict of January 1560: Merlin, ‘Il Seicento’, 76. 37 Walter Barberis, ‘Die Bildung der “milizia paesana” in Piemont: Zentrale Gewalt und lokale Verhältnisse zwischen dem 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, in Klientelsysteme im Europa der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Antoni Mączak (Munich, 1988), 297. 38 Barberis, Armi del Principe, 20; id., ‘Bildung der “milizia paesana” ’, 262. 39 Storrs, War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy, 38–43. 40 On the importance of foreign subsidies for both Savoy and Prussia, see Storrs, War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy, 103–18; Max Plassmann, ‘Der Preis der Krone. Preußische Truppen im Spanischen Erbfolgekrieg’, in Dreihundert Jahre Preußische Königskrönung. Eine Tagungsdokumentation, ed. Johannes Kunisch (Berlin, 2002), 229–56. The whole problem is discussed by Peter H. Wilson in ‘The German “Soldier Trade” of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century: A Reassessment’, International History Review, 16 (1996), 757–92, at 763, 776. 41 Wilson, ‘The German “Soldier Trade” ’, 791. state-building within the empire 197

In the case of Savoy, this led to close cooperation with the estates (Reichsstände) of the Holy Roman Empire during the Nine Years War and the war of Spanish Succession. On the occasion of negotiations, which took place mainly in The Hague and London, Victor Amadeus II recruited troops in Saxony, Brandenburg, and Baden-Württemberg. As early as 1690 he concluded a contract with Frederick III of Brandenburg concerning the status of a regiment composed of Huguenot refugees. Up to 1696, 3,000 mercenaries from Brandenburg served under Victor Amadeus.42 German officers pursued their careers in Savoyard service. The Livonian Otto Bernhard von Rehbinder, for example, commanded a regiment in Piedmont and became a confidant of Victor Amadeus II and Charles Emanuel III. The brother of Elector Frederick III, Charles, captain of a Prussian regiment serving in Piedmont, died at the siege of Casale in 1695.43 By the end of the war of the Spanish Succession, the Savoyard army had taken on the structure that it would retain virtually unchanged throughout the eighteenth century. Aside from the elite troops of the Maison royale, the Archers de la porte, the Gardes suisses, the dragoons, and the régiments étrangers, the army consisted of the régiments d’ordonnance in all branches of service (infantry, artillery, and cavalry) composed of volunteers from Savoy and Piedmont. The milizia paesana system was restruc- tured after the end of the war of the Spanish Succession. Victor Amadeus had decreed in 1714 that all provinces must mobilize ten regiments, a total of 6,000 soldiers. This number was increased to 10,000 by 1727. All male subjects between the ages of 18 and 40 years were obliged to serve. Begin- ning in 1716, they were drafted for manoeuvres twice a year.44 A well- organized military bureaucracy (consisting of a state secretary, an office général de la solde, and a general staff) assured the functioning of this

42 Storrs, War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy, 46–51. On Frederick III’s foreign policy, see Ernst Berner, ‘Die auswärtige Politik des Kurfürsten Friedrich III. von Brandenburg, König Friedrich I. in Preußen’, Hohenzollern-Jahrbuch, 4 (1900), 60–109. 43 Storrs, War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy, 51, 250; Merlin, ‘Il Seicento’, 456; Max Braubach, Prinz Eugen von Savoyen (5 vols, Munich/Vienna, 1963–5), ii.156, 162, 201; Sabina Loriga, Soldats. Un laboratoire disciplinaire: l’armée piémontaise au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1991), 33. Barberis, Armi del principe, 150–2: ‘Gli stranieri, di fatto, sarebbero rimasti i grandi protagonisti dell’esercito sabaudo per tutto il secolo; ben altrimenti che metterne in dis- cussione la funzione o la liceità in un esercito che si pretendeva nazionale, si sarebbe addirittura formati dei partiti per sostenere taluni gruppi de mercenari contro altri’ (151). 44 Storrs, War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy, 71–2; Loriga, Soldats, 33–4. On the military administration of the province of Savoy after the reforms of Victor Amadeus II, see Roger Devos and Bernard Grosperrin, La Savoie de la Réforme à la Révolution (Rennes, 1985), 426–7. 198 sven externbrink military structure, which was completed with the development of naval forces after 1720.45 In the second half of the century—the Seven Years War did not affect Italy—reforms sought to improve the education of officers and sergeants, who were forced to attend training sessions, for example at the Ecole d’artillerie founded in 1738.46 In 1775, the secretary of the French embassy, Bigot de Sainte-Croix, reported the size of the Savoyard army to be 34,119 soldiers in the infantry and 2,756 in the cavalry.47 The parallels between the development of the Savoyard-Sardinian military constitution and that of Brandenburg-Prussia become obvious if we consider the army of Frederick III/I and not that of his successors Fred- erick William I and Frederick the Great. Frederick III/I faced the same problems as his contemporary Victor Amadeus II. He also participated in the Nine Years War and in the war of the Spanish Succession as an ally of the sea powers and the emperor. Like the Savoyard duke, he was also anxious to raise the necessary forces by recruiting inhabitants, and thus took measures similar to the ones practised in Savoy. In 1693 he was already ordering each province to provide a certain number of soldiers.48 In addition, he created a national militia composed of men between 18 and 40 years of age who were to train at regular intervals. For this purpose he enrolled them in lists (enrolliert), and in the summer of 1703 it was decided that the 20,000 enrolled men should form four regiments to be distributed among the different provinces49—a situation comparable to Savoy. This idea was the basis for the cantonal system (Kantonsystem) created by Frederick William I. Thus the Prussian recruitment system was not as singular and new as we are accustomed to thinking, for it had a predecessor in Savoy. Given the fact that forces from Brandenburg had been operating in Savoy since 1690, it seems quite possible that their officers had reported back on the Savoyard militia and the recruitment system. In the eighteenth century, in turn, Prussia was keenly watched from Turin, for example by officers who had travelled to Berlin in order to study the

45 Loriga, Soldats, 35. 46 Antonio Manno (ed.), ‘Relazione del Piemonte del segretario francese Sainte-Croix,’ Miscellanea di Storia Italiana, 16 (1877), pp. i–xxviii, 1–424, at 49. 47 Manno, ‘Relazione del Sainte-Croix’, 70–1; Loriga, Soldats, 38. 48 Max Jähns, ‘Das Kriegswesen unter König Friedrich I.’, Hohenzollern-Jahrbuch, 4 (1900), 140–69, at 142. 49 Jähns, ‘Kriegswesen unter König Friedrich I.’, 142–4; Klaus Peter Merta, ‘Eine Armee in Europa. Heerwesen und Militärpolitik’, in Preußen 1701. Eine europäische Geschichte. Landesausstellung Preußen 2001 (2 vols, Berlin, 2001), ii.121–32, at 129. state-building within the empire 199

Prussian army locally50 or to buy uniforms that were subsequently used to develop their own.51 As in Prussia, the military also shaped the daily life and culture of the court in the kingdom of Sardinia. According to the French diplomat Bigot de Sainte-Croix, Charles Emanuel III (born 1701, ruled 1730–73) ‘ne con- tribua pas peu à imprimer un caractère militaire à sa nation; l’homme de la plus grande qualité ne pouvait, s’il n’était au service, prétendre aux Places de la Cour.’52 Service in the army promised high social prestige, so that in the second half of the eighteenth century even those families of the noblesse de robe whose ancestors had traditionally been state officials now aspired to careers as military officers. The cavalry, usually the domain of the nobility, was also opened to non-nobles.53 The nobility likewise had to work their way slowly through the ranks because the venality of army office did not exist as it did in France.54 It was the king who nominated the officers of his army. This practice assured the obedience to the dynasty of those families seeking appointment to the officer corps. Generally, the attitude of the Piedmontese nobility had been characterized since the sixteenth century by considerable loyalty to the dynasty, an attitude that included even broader classes of the population and was deemed extraordinary.55 * When it came to the militarization of society, both kingdoms differed fundamentally from other medium-sized states of the eighteenth century.

50 Loriga, Soldats, 206–8. There are two articles on Prussian–Savoyard relations in the eighteenth century: Augusto Bazzoni, ‘Relazioni diplomatiche tra la casa di Savoia e la Prussia nel secolo XVIII’, Archivio Storico Italiano, 15 (1872), 3–21, 193–209, 377–90; and Luigi Bulferetti, ‘Le relazioni diplomatiche fra lo stato sabaudo e la Prussia durante il regno di Vittorio Amadeo III’, Annuario dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età moderna e Contempo- ranea, 1939–41, also published separately in 1942. I was unable to consult the latter. 51 Manno, ‘Relazione del Sainte-Croix’, 71. 52 Manno, ‘Relazione del Sainte-Croix’, 48–9; Loriga, Soldats, 45–63. For a characterization of militarized court society, see ibid., 85–91. 53 Loriga, Soldats, 73–91. 54 Loriga, Soldats, 94. Cf. Manno, ‘Relazione del Sainte-Croix’, 49: ‘On voit avec surprise les parents des deux sexes se rassembler pour aller aux audiences particulières baiser la main de toute la famille royale et lui rendre grâce d’un rang de cadet ou d’une fortune immense.’ 55 According to a Venetian envoy, even in the early seventeenth century loyalty to the monarchs was already ‘superiore a qualsivoglia altra nazione che sia oggidi al mondo: di altro non si gloriano che di essere sudditi del duca di Savoia, né vi è suddito che per lui non si facesse martire.’ Quoted in Rosario Romeo, ‘Il Risorgimento,’ in Storia del Piemonte (2 vols, Turin, 1960), i.311–428, at 313. Gregory Hanlon, The Twilight of a Military Tradition. Italian Aristocrats and European Conflicts, 1560–1800 (London, 1997). 200 sven externbrink

Although the latter—for instance the grand duchy of Tuscany—were characterized by the intensive reform politics of their sovereigns after 1763, which earned them the attention and admiration of the public,56 in none of them was the increased efficiency of state power so closely associated with the solidification of military power. At the same time, this was a precondition for increased prestige within the state system and in the eyes of the great powers. While Savoy-Sardinia’s geopolitical location as guardian of the Alpine passes meant that it was constantly being courted by Paris, Madrid and Vienna, Prussia’s reputation as an auxiliary power increased in proportion to the growth of its military potential. Savoyard and Prus- sian rulers alike were always prepared to change sides, even during war, if political interests demanded it.57 In the middle of the eighteenth century this practice became less important. Under Frederick the Great, Prussia established a precarious status as a great power; Savoy-Sardinia was ultimately limited in its expansion by the Franco-Austrian alliance of 1756.58 At first glance, the Holy Roman Empire seems to have impeded the state-building process in both Brandenburg and Savoy. From the perspective of the longue durée, however, it becomes clear that already in the Middle Ages the Empire or its sovereign provided a significant impetus for state-building. Starting in the sixteenth century, the Empire represented a protection that favoured the growth of political power in Brandenburg and Savoy.59 This protective function must not be underestimated for

56 For the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, see Carpanetto and Ricuperati, Italy in the Age of Reason, 210–22. 57 For a discussion of this practice, see Wilson, ‘The German “Soldier Trade” ’, 776. 58 Cf. the statement in a French diplomat’s description of Savoy-Sardinia at the end of the eighteenth century, in Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Paris, Série Mémoires et Documents, Sardaigne, vol. 10, fol. 4r–135v: ‘Idée générale de la maison de Savoie, des fondements de sa puissance, de son accroissement successif et de son état actuel sous le règne de Victor Amedée III’, fos 85v–86r: ‘Nous avons vû la maison de Savoie dès les premiers temps de son elévation, toujours incertaine et flottante par principe, mais toujours adroite et prévoyante, passer tour à tour d’un camp dans un autre, metre son alliance à l’enchère, et la vendant à celle des puissances supérieures qu’il achetoient par des conditions plus avantageuses; profiter de leurs querelles pour s’accroître à leurs dépens alternativement alliée depuis près d’un siècle des maisons de France et d’Autriche, enrichie par les cessions que l’un et l’autre ont successivement été obligés de lui faire, elle attendoit de la durée de leurs division de nouveaux avantages, lors qu’elle a vu se renverser tout à coup, par la réunion des cours de Versailles et de Vienne, le Sisteme d’agrandissement qu’elle avoit jusqu’alors si habiliment et si heureusement suivi.’ 59 On Savoyard–Habsburg relations during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, see Cornel Zwierlein, ‘Savoyen-Piemonts Verhältnis zum Reich, 1536 bis 1618: Zwis- chen ständischer Reichspolitik und absolutistischer Außenpolitik’, in Schnettger and Verga (ed.), L’impero e l’Italia, 347–89. state-building within the empire 201

Italy—despite the weak institutions of Reichsitalien. Lorraine, which was detached from the Empire in 1542, did not succeed in preserving continuous sovereignty, was subject to constant pressure from the Habsburgs and France, and was finally incorporated into the French state. Savoy, which was in a similar geopolitical situation, managed to escape this fate despite regular and even more protracted occupations. The ancestral seat of the dynasty, which Richelieu would have loved to integrate into the crown dominions in the 1630s, did not become part of France until 1860.60 Savoy and Brandenburg fully exploited the possibilities of early modern state-building. Their development into two military states of the late eighteenth century was not always direct, and nearly failed more than once. Overall, their ambition to expand and consolidate was not unique, since all European states tried to achieve a similar position.61 In this context, the army was to become the ‘motor of the machinery of state’. The military constitution helped to forge the state, and the invoking of military traditions served to mould identity in the nineteenth century. A comparison of the military constitutions reveals that the Prussian model was not singular; it seems to have been perfected by the Hohenzollerns, even more than by the Savoyards. The French Revolution, the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and the reconfiguration of the political map of Europe by Napoleon represented a litmus test for the stability of the state created by the Hohenzollerns and the house of Savoy. Savoy-Sardinia and Prussia shared the fate of military defeat and political humiliation. Nonetheless, despite its severely reduced circumstances, Prussia after 1806 clearly had more important resources at its disposal than backward Sardinia, whose King Victor Emanuel I fled before Napoleon and his army. While in Prussia after the catastrophe of Jena and Auerstedt the reforms of Stein and Hardenberg ushered in an intensively discussed (and sometimes glorified) phase of ‘defensive modernization’ (in H.-U. Wehler’s phrase), in the Savoyard state the ideas and principles of the French Revolution lived on for some twenty years. Napo- leonic rule accelerated the dissolution of ancien régime social structures in Piedmont and replaced them with the principles of legal equality. The old privileges were abandoned and the Code Napoléon was introduced.62

60 Externbrink, Le Cœur du monde, 310–18. 61 Cf. Wilson, ‘The German “Soldier Trade” ’, 787, 791–2. 62 On Napoleonic Sardinia, see Paola Notario, ‘Il Piemonte nell’età napoleonica’, in Notario and Narcisco Nada, Il Piemonte sabaudo dal periodo napoleonico al Risorgimento (Turin, 1993), 3–95. 202 sven externbrink

Numerous continuities in early modern state-building were interrupted in Savoy and Prussia between 1789 and 1815. However, this applies only to a lesser extent to the external situation of both states. The Congress of Vienna not only re-established their former functions in the state system but also guaranteed them important territorial gains. After 1815, Sar- dinia resumed its traditional role as a buffer between Austria and France and was able once again to try to play one against the other for its own benefit. Savoy’s and Prussia’s tradition of 300 years of state-building and expansion allowed them to continue to play their roles during the decisive phase of the construction of nation-states in the nineteenth century. Viewed from an early modern perspective, the conflicts of 1859, 1866, and 1870 can be considered victories of the former middle-sized powers over the early modern great powers. Only after 1860 can we observe the end of these parallel paths. While Savoy-Piedmont was integrated into the newly founded unified Italian state (the centralization of which is a legacy of the Savoyard monarchy), Prussia dominated the German nation-state. Thus Savoy and Prussia represent not Sonderwege in the European state-building process, but rather the dynamism that could exist in a political system such as the Holy Roman Empire without destroying it. Core and Periphery: The Netherlands and the Empire from the Late Fifteenth to the Early Seventeenth Century

Nicolette Mout

A Dutch minister of finance was once asked what he would do if he were the president of the German Federal Bank. ‘Never ask a Dutchman what he would do if he were a German’, was his reply. Such a sense of absolute sep- arateness must be the result of a long historical development. During the eleventh and twelfth century, emperors still visited the Netherlands quite regularly. If in about 1200 a bishop of Utrecht had been asked whether he regarded his diocese as a part of the Regnum Teutonicorum his answer would have been affirmative as a matter of course. From the thirteenth century onwards the ties between the Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire became less significant. Rulers of a number of Netherlandish territories became more and more involved with France and England and the emperors stopped their visits to this periphery of the Empire. During the fifteenth century the Netherlands were not even represented at the imperial diets nor did they pay imperial taxes.1 In modern times the history of the relations between the Low Countries and the Holy Roman Empire has attracted the attention of a number of scholars. Historians of constitutional law, for instance, have tried to solve the question how and when the Netherlands reached their independence from the Empire.2 During the Second World War the Netherlands were

1 Johan Huizinga, ‘Die Mittlerstellung der Niederlande zwischen West- und Mit- teleuropa’, in his Verzamelde werken, vol. 2 (Haarlem, 1948), 292; Henny Grüneisen, ‘Die westlichen Reichsstände in der Auseinandersetzung zwischen dem Reich, Burgund und Frankreich bis 1473’, Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter, 226 (1961), 22–77; Johannes Arndt, Das Heilige Römische Reich und die Niederlande, 1566 bis 1648 (Cologne etc., 1998), 32–3. 2 For instance: Felix Rachfahl, ‘Die Trennung der Niederlande vom Deutschen Reiche’, Westdeutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kunst, 19 (1900), 79–119; Heinrich von Srbik, Die Niederlande und Österreich. Vier Jahrhunderte staatlicher Beziehungen (Amsterdam, 1923); Johannes A. van Arkel, ‘De Nederlandsche Republiek en haar staatsrechtelijke band met het Duitsche Rijk’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 59 (1946), 219–28; Robert Feenstra, ‘A quelle époque les Provinces-Unies sont-elles devenues indépendantes en droit à l’égard du Saint-Empire’, Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis, 20 (1952), 30–63, 182–218, 479–80, with references to older literature in the field of legal history; id., ‘Een onuitgegeven leenakte van keizer Karel VI en het einde van den leenband met het Heilige Roomse Rijk’, Bijdragen 204 nicolette mout

(re)incorporated into a German Reich once more, and this gave rise to a number of scholarly publications which, however, had a different emphasis. Between 1940 and 1945 German scholars tried to prove that the bonds between the Netherlands and the Empire had been natural, indissoluble and eternal.3 In what follows the ancient dispute whether and, if so, until when the Netherlands were part of the Holy Roman Empire will not be taken up again. It is enough to know that, although formally the emperors never gave up their claims, they did not assert their rights either.4 A glance at the history of the actual political relations between the Netherlands and the Empire during the sixteenth century seems to be more promising, because then the stage was set for developments in later times. From a practical-political point of view, legal matters or the fine points of political theory must be regarded as less important than political action and especially interaction between the two bodies. During the sixteenth century constitutional practice in the Empire presented the spectacle of a certain dynamism—fed by the Reformation and the ensuing political conflicts— whereas from the sixties onwards important political and constitutional changes were engendered by the Revolt in the Netherlands.5 As far as the relations between the Empire and the Netherlands are concerned the sixteenth century must be divided into two distinct periods: 1512–48 and 1548–1609. In 1512 Emperor Maximilian I organized the Empire into circles (Kreise), of which the Burgundian circle was one. Together with a part of the Westphalian circle it comprised the whole of the Netherlands. In 1548 the treaty of Augsburg (or Burgundian treaty) was concluded between Emperor Charles V and his brother King Ferdinand. The treaty should have controlled the constitutional relations between the Empire and the Netherlands for ever, but did so only until the outbreak of the Revolt of the Netherlands in the late sixties. Lastly, 1609 is the

en Mededelingen van het Historisch Genootschap, 69 (1955), 109–29; cf. for more recent literature, Arndt, Das Heilige Römische Reich und die Niederlande, 36–8. 3 Ivo Schöffer, Het nationaalsocialistische beeld van de geschiedenis der Nederlanden. Een historiografische en bibliografische studie (2nd edn, Utrecht, 1978), 185–94. 4 Volker Press, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Etat et religion aux XVe et XVIe siècles/ Staat en religie in de 15e en 16e eeuw, ed. Willem P. Blockmans and Herman van Nuffel (Brussels, 1986), 321–39; Václav Čihák, Les Provinces-Unies et la cour imperiale, 1667–1672 (Amsterdam, 1974), 59–67. 5 Press, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 332; Volker Press, ‘Das römisch-deutsche Reich—ein politisches System in verfassungs- und sozialgeschichtlicher Fragestellung’, in: Spezialforschung und ‛Gesamtgeschichte’. Beispiele und Methodenfragen zur Geschichte der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Grete Klingenstein and Heinrich Lutz (Munich, 1982), 221–42. core and periphery: the netherlands and the empire 205 date of the beginning of the Twelve Years Truce between the Dutch rebels and Spain. At that moment, the United Provinces of the Netherlands were de facto recognized as an independent state by all European powers. Undeniably the Empire and its Netherlandish periphery in the north- west part of Europe had become quite alienated from the thirteenth century onwards. However, there was no doubt that those lands were part of the Empire. In the fifteenth century, the Dutch states general from time to time emphasized their independence from the emperor, but not so much from the Empire. At the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century certain French feudal rights had been usurped, when successive emperors enfeoffed members of the house of Habsburg-Burgundy with large parts of the Netherlands. These enfeoffments can be interpreted as the sign of a new stage in the relationship between the Empire and the Netherlands.6 The establishment of the Imperial Chamber Court (Reichskammergericht) in 1495 meant the beginning of endless quibbles about the question whether the jurisdiction of this court extended to the Netherlands, although these territories contributed to its costs.7 * In the first half of the sixteenth century relations with the Empire were controlled by the development of Habsburg power, and consequently by the balance between this power and internal Netherlandish interests. Such was the Netherlandish point of view. But when Maximilian I set up the Burgundian circle in 1512 it was not entirely clear exactly which territories belonged to it. Moreover, the creation of the circle had no immediate impact on Netherlandish politics. It is therefore understandable that a certain aloofness on both sides characterized the relations with the Empire during the first decade after 1512. However, after Charles V became emperor the Netherlands soon became a key factor in his policy. Its relation to the Empire had therefore to be redefined. In 1531, Charles V secretly instructed his brother Ferdinand that the Netherlands were to be kept outside the jurisdiction of the Empire whereas the imperial estates insisted that they were part of the Empire. Consequently, the estates argued, the Netherlands had to pay up for the defence against the

6 Nicolette Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich im 16. Jahrhundert, 1512–1609’, in Alternativen zur Reichsverfassung in der Frühen Neuzeit?, ed. Volker Press and Dieter Stiev- ermann (Munich, 1995), 144–5. 7 Paul L. Nève, Het Rijkskamergerecht en de Nederlanden. Competentie—Territoir— Archieven (Assen, 1972). 206 nicolette mout

Turks and were subjected to the jurisdiction of the Reichskammergericht. Because of pressing financial problems caused by the wars against France Charles V could not be too dismissive about these claims, but the Neth- erlanders steadfastly refused to pay the imperial taxes (Reichskontributio nen) for defence against the Turks, and they wanted to avoid the authority of the Reichskammergericht altogether. In this they were, in fact, backed by the regent, Mary of Hungary, and the emperor himself. In 1542, after the fall of Buda to the sultan, the imperial diet decided once again that the Burgundian circle and the Netherlandish part of the Westphalian circle were obliged to send not only tax money, but also troops to the Turkish wars. The diet’s views were seconded by Ferdinand, who was responsible for military operations in Austria and Hungary and could use some more troops and money from imperial taxation. However, the diet’s decision was sabotaged by Mary of Hungary as well as by the emperor himself. Between the two of them they were of the opinion that tax money from the Netherlands ought to pay for the wars against France and Guelders in the first place. Moreover, the imperial estates had irritated Charles V because they had tried to protect the special status of those northern and eastern parts of the Netherlands which undoubtedly had belonged to the Empire since medieval times and were now being conquered by the emperor: the provinces of Frisia, Groningen (Ommelanden), Overijssel, Utrecht and Guelders.8 Around 1542 there certainly was some bad blood between the two parties, but there was no question of a parting of ways. As the Netherlands urgently needed military help against the king of France and the duke of Cleves, Mary of Hungary devised a defensive treaty between the Empire and the Netherlands. She sent one of her best diplomats, the Frisian jurist Viglius van Aytta, to two consecutive imperial diets at Nuremberg in 1542–3 with a shrewd plan. Tax money should go to the Empire in exchange for imperial troops for the Netherlands, which in this deal was presented as a separate political entity. Predictably the diet and Ferdinand would have none of it. They insisted, then and at the following diets, on sizeable contributions from the Netherlands for the war against the Turks. However, Mary of Hungary refused to pay up as long as the war with France and Cleves lasted.9

8 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 147–50; Folkert Postma, Viglius van Aytta als humanist en diplomaat, 1507–49 (Zutphen, 1983), 89–96. 9 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 150–1; Postma, Viglius van Aytta als humanist en diplomaat, 100–9. core and periphery: the netherlands and the empire 207

After peace with Cleves was concluded in 1543 and with France a year later, rumours reached Ferdinand that the emperor was contemplating a complete separation between his Netherlandish and Burgundian Erblande and the Empire. These rumours were not wide off the mark. Discussions were indeed going on at the Brussels court about the extent of feudal rights exercised by the Empire in the Netherlands and their impact on administrative practice and jurisdiction. These discussions resulted in a second plan for a defensive treaty, very similar to the first one, which was presented by Viglius to the diet of Worms in 1545. The main topic at this diet was the state of religion in the Empire, certainly not the problems of the Netherlands. What is interesting is not so much the understandably negative reaction of the imperial estates to the plan concocted in Brussels, but Viglius’s political reasoning. In case of a defensive treaty, he argued, the imperial estates would be obliged to assist the Netherlands, but this should not impinge on existing privileges of these territories; the imperial taxes were too high for the Netherlands anyhow and should be lowered in any case. Viglius clearly wanted to stress the factual political and constitutional independence of the Low Countries from the Empire. In doing so, he was echoing the prevailing mood in Brussels.10 As these plans for a defensive treaty came to nothing it was the emperor himself who desired to put the relations on a new footing. In future Mary of Hungary and her counsellors at Brussels would be permitted to advise Charles V, but not to formulate an independent political line any more. After the battle of Mühlberg a change in policy led to plans in 1547–8 for the incorporation of the Netherlands into an Imperial League (Reichs- bund). Charles V was in favour of a bipolar organization of the Reichsbund with the Netherlands as the northern, Austria as the southern pole. In such a way he hoped to be able to perfect his control over his territories and to organize the defence against the French and the Turks more effi- ciently. For the Netherlands it would mean that they would become part of a confederation in which all the imperial estates were represented. The Brussels government was greatly alarmed, as in its eyes this constituted a serious threat to its own powers. It probably also feared the combined power which the southern German territories and the Austrian hereditary lands would acquire in such a confederation. Especially Viglius worked hard to convince both Mary of Hungary and the council of state in Brussels

10 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 151–2; Postma, Viglius van Aytta als humanist en diplomaat, 129. 208 nicolette mout that incorporation into such an confederation would not be advantageous to the Netherlands.11 As we know now, this much-feared and criticised Reichsbund was never realized.12 Instead, Charles V recurred to the older plans for a defensive alliance, as part of his dynastically inspired policy after the Schmal kaldic War. The treaty of Augsburg (1548, also known as the Burgundian treaty), which was concluded between the emperor and King Ferdinand, was undoubtedly a triumph in the first place for Viglius, who had been responsible for its drafting. The text stressed that the Netherlanders had been a free people from time immemorial. Some of Viglius’s arguments sound surprisingly similar to those used a few decades later in the political propaganda of the rebels during the first stages of the Revolt of the Netherlands. The Brussels government received what it had waited for so long: it was promised the prospect of military assistance from the Empire in times of need, the unification of all the Netherlandish provinces in one newly modelled Burgundian circle, and useful institutional links with the Empire. The states general of the Netherlands accepted it willingly and did not even object to the obligation to pay tax for the defence of the Empire. For the imperial estates the treaty solved a few practical problems: the new Burgundian circle recognized its feudal duties to the Empire and it was going to be represented in the diet. It would send a legal assessor to the Reichskammergericht and accept its rulings in imperial fiscal matters; so it could be concluded that the Netherlands were still part of the Empire but at the same time in a defensive alliance with it. This was perhaps juridically rather awkward, but the emperor regarded the arrangement as workable in practice. However, the imperial estates repeatedly voiced their doubts, as did the imperial council of princes (Reichsfürstenrat).13 In the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 Charles V settled questions of heredity and indivisibility of the Low Countries. In such a way it seemed guaranteed that in future all the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands would stay united under one Habsburg ruler and be kept outside the Empire in perpetuity.14

11 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 152–3; Postma, Viglius van Aytta als humanist en diplomaat, 146–51. 12 Horst Rabe, Reichsbund und Interim. Die Verfassungs- und Religionspolitik Karls V. und der Reichstag von Augsburg, 1547–8 (Cologne/Vienna, 1971); Volker Press, ‘Die Bundespläne Karls V. und die Reichsverfassung’, in Das römisch-deutsche Reich im politischen System Karls V., ed. Heinrich Lutz (Munich, 1982), 55–106. 13 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 153–5; Postma, Viglius van Aytta als humanist en diplomaat, 155–63; Arndt, Das Heilige Römische Reich und die Niederlande, 35–40. 14 Wim Blockmans, Keizer Karel V 1500–1558. De utopie van het keizerschap (Louvain/ Amsterdam, 2000), 83. core and periphery: the netherlands and the empire 209

The Brussels government now set itself a number of specific political and administrative tasks. Centralizing and streamlining the government of the Netherlands were its main objectives. Introducing principles of rationalization and order into an administrative system where special privileges for cities, provinces and social groups abounded did not seem an easy task. The newly conquered territories in the north and east had to be included as well. A reasonable and permanent settlement with the imperial estates without giving up Netherlandish independence was part of this Brussels policy. In principle Charles V shared this view, as long as it fitted in with his own political programme for his Netherland- ish Erblande. The imperial estates, however, were not much interested in either the international position or the internal administration of the Netherlands as such. They wanted tax money and troops in the first place, and they desired their institutions and rights to be fully acknowledged. As long as the emperor was not particularly interested in the actual relations between the two bodies the representatives of the Netherlands and the Empire had been fruitlessly exchanging their views during the various diets. Only when Charles V granted the Netherlands—in the guise of the new Burgundian Circle—a new role in his policy were the constitutional and legal relations between the two bodies firmly put on a new foundation. The settlement of the Treaty of Augsburg was meant to last for ever, but it was going to collapse with the outbreak of the Revolt of the Netherlands a few decades later.15 * In 1549 Prince Philip succeeded Charles V as lord of the Netherlands and two years later his enfeoffment by the emperor followed. In the same year the treaty of Augsburg was put to the test when war with France was resumed. The imperial estates refused to send troops because the Nether- landers did not acknowledge the competence of the Reichskammergericht in matters of defence. They were also found to be rather lax in paying the imperial taxes.16 In the years following the conclusion of the religious peace of Augsburg (1555) the estates of Brabant discussed its possible introduction in the Neth- erlands. In that case heretics would have been given the right to emigrate, which would have solved the problems posed by religious persecution. Only a minority of the magistrates supported harsh repression of heresy.

15 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 155; Alfred Kohler, Karl V., 1500–58. Eine Bio- graphie (Munich, 1999), 322–3. 16 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 156. 210 nicolette mout

Severe punishments for heretics were widely rejected in the Netherlands. This was inspired by political as well as humanitarian considerations: per- secutions and especially public burnings caused unrest and heretics ought not to be punished for spiritual errors only. However, the Brussels government, since 1559 headed by the new regent, Margaret of Parma, firmly kept to the treaty of Augsburg: religious policy was solely a matter for the Netherlands and in no way related to developments in the Empire. There could be no question of introducing the peace of Augsburg.17 During the early years of the Revolt of the Netherlands it became clear that the Spanish king and the emperor were pursuing their own political ends, a situation which could lead to serious differences between the two branches of the dynasty. Emperor Maximilian II did nothing to stop the recruitment of soldiers for the Dutch rebel army in the Empire, although he did offer, repeatedly but unsuccessfully, to mediate between Philip II and the rebels. Needless to say, the rebellious parts of the Netherlands had now completely stopped paying imperial taxes. Philip II, though, continued to pay on behalf of his possessions in the Low Countries for the defence against the Turks.18 At first, the imperial diets did not pay much attention to the Revolt of the Netherlands. This attitude changed, however, with the execution of the counts of Egmond and Horn by the new regent, the Duke of Alba, in June 1568. The death of these high noblemen, both knights of the Golden Fleece and members of the Empire, was greeted with horror. In later years, the diet provided the stage for heated discussions with diplomats from Spain or the Spanish Netherlands about the problems caused by acts of war on German soil involving Spanish troops. At the same time both Madrid and Brussels kept up direct bilateral diplomatic correspondence with a number of rulers of the Empire who were regarded as certain or possible supporters of the Spanish case against the Dutch rebels.19

17 Ibid., 156–7; F. Postma, Viglius van Aytta. De jaren met Granvelle, 1549–64 (Zutphen, 2000) 71; J.J. Woltjer and M.E.H.N. Mout, ‘Settlements: the Netherlands’, in Handbook of European History, 1400–1600: Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, ed. Thomas A. Brady, Jr et al., vol. 2 (Leiden etc., 1995), 389, 395–6. 18 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 157; Arndt, Das Heilige Römische Reich und die Niederlande, 42–9. Maximilian Lanzinner, Friedenssicherung und politische Einheit des Reiches unter Kaiser Maximilian II., 1564–76 (Göttingen, 1992). 19 Arndt, Das Heilige Römische Reich und die Niederlande, 52–67; Monique Weis, Les Pays-Bas espagnols et les États du Saint Empire, 1559–79. Priorités et enjeux de la diplomatie en temps de troubles (Brussels, 2003), 255–363. core and periphery: the netherlands and the empire 211

It was true that the rebels tried to find assistance in the Empire. They hoped Protestant princes would help with money, recruitment facilities or even troops. William of Orange’s German connections were expected to be a powerful factor here. His first military campaign against the Duke of Alba was launched from his ancestral castle in the Empire, the Dillen- burg in the Nassau lands. Unfortunately for him, many imperial estates, Protestants among them, viewed this campaign of 1568 as an objection- able breach of the peace (Landfriedensbruch). Moreover, the leading role of the Calvinists in the Revolt of the Netherlands did not find much favour in the Empire. The raids of the maritime branch of the Dutch rebels, the sea beggars, on north German coasts and their frequent taking of German ships did not help to find friends for the rebels in the Empire either.20 Bilateral diplomatic relations between the rebels and several of the most important Protestant princes did not seem to lead to substantial assistance for William of Orange. So the rebels tried a different strategy: in 1570 they sent representatives to the diet of Speyer in order to find protection against Alba there. On that occasion, the rebels stressed the relations between the Netherlands and the Empire, deliberately and conveniently forgetting about the stipulations of the treaty of Augsburg. The Duke of Alba on the other hand, fearing interference in his policies from the Empire, strictly kept to the treaty and emphasized Netherland- ish independence from the Empire. Although the estates of the Empire clearly sympathized with victims such as the widow of Horn and other nobles whose goods had been confiscated by Alba, they took no action whatsoever. When Maximilian II tried to intercede for these nobles, Alba referred to the treaty of Augsburg, which had put an end to imperial jurisdiction in the Netherlands, ‘a free and unattached country’ (ein frei und uneingezogen land) and disregarded the emperor’s wishes completely. Adam von Dietrichstein’s intercession with the Spanish king on behalf of the punished nobles, which he undertook on the instructions of the imperial estates, had no result either. The estates then left it at that. A much more pressing problem for them was posed by Alba’s policy to ban all imperial money from the Netherlands because an influx of debased coinage from the Empire was causing inflation there.21

20 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 157–8; Arndt, Das Heilige Römische Reich und die Niederlande, 100–5, 151–9. 21 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 158–9; Maximilian Lanzinner, ‘Der Aufstand der Niederlande und der Reichstag zu Speyer 1570’, in Fortschritte in der Geschichtswissenschaft 212 nicolette mout

For successive diets as well as for the emperors, the problems arising from the Revolt of the Netherlands were most of the time rather peripheral. It was in their best interest to keep those problems at bay in order not to get involved into the struggle between the Dutch rebels and the Spanish king. The circle of the Lower Rhine and Westphalia, however, bore the brunt of the many hostilities between Spanish and Dutch rebel troops taking place on its territory between 1568 and 1597.22 After the pacification of Ghent (1576), the provisional peace concluded between the states general in the royalist provinces and the Dutch rebels in the north, William of Orange for a short while tried to intensify his contacts with the Empire, but he soon turned to France and England for help. It was his brother, Jan van Nassau, who consistently, but often in vain, pleaded with him and other leaders of the Revolt of the Netherlands in favour of political and military cooperation with German Protestant princes. Never- theless, in the late seventies William of Orange and his counsellors were still hoping for money and troops from the Empire, especially from the Calvinist Prince John Casimir of the Palatinate.23 After Archduke Matthias of Austria had been appointed regent of the Netherlands in September 1577 (without the consent of Philip II), hopes were raised that his brother, Emperor Rudolf II, would offer some sort of protection or mediation, or allow the imperial estates to do so. There- fore, William of Orange thought it prudent to send one of his top politicians, Philip Marnix of St Aldegonde, to the Deputationstag of the imperial estates at Worms in 1578. His impassioned peroration was a fine piece of propaganda, accusing the Spanish of posing a serious threat not only to the Netherlands, but to the Empire as well. The Spanish were cast by him in the role of a new sinister superpower striving for domination of the whole world.24 The indirect outcome of Marnix’s efforts at Worms were the peace mediation talks in Cologne in 1579 (Kölner Pazifikationstag). These talks were initiated by Emperor Rudolf II, who was firmly on the side of the Spanish king, but nevertheless favoured mediations because he feared a Franco- Dutch alliance. The mediation failed completely, but nevertheless the

durch Reichstagsaktenforschung, ed. Heinz Angermeier and Erich Meuthen (Göttingen, 1988), 102–17. 22 Arndt, Das Heilige Römische Reich und die Niederlande, 104–23. 23 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 160–1. 24 Monique Weis, Philippe de Marnix et le Saint Empire, 1566–78 (Brussels, 2004); the text of Marnix’ oration ibid. 65–139; cf. also Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 161–2. core and periphery: the netherlands and the empire 213

Dutch states general decided not to break off relations with the Empire.25 The Union of Utrecht, the defensive military and political alliance of the rebel provinces of 1579 which became one of the foundations for the Dutch Republic, recognized the fact that the Netherlands had ancient ties with the Empire which should not be broken. Orange’s brother, Jan van Nassau, was still seen working for co-operation with German Calvinists. Those provinces in the eastern part of the country, especially Overijssel and Guelders, which were members of the circle of the Lower Rhine and Westphalia, refused to give up their relations with the Empire mainly for economic reasons. The province of Holland had no such qualms and in 1582 planned an embassy to the emperor in order to brand the election of the Duke of Anjou as lord of the Netherlands a ‘useless’ operation. From the emperor’s point of view such an embassy possibly seemed useless as well. The diet of 1582 was the last occasion Netherlandish affairs were discussed in depth there.26 The emerging Dutch Republic developed a consistent foreign policy only during the 1590s. The emperor or the diet were not as important for it as certain individual Protestant princes of the Empire, who were regarded and treated as prospective allies. While Dutch diplomacy centred on them, the emperor only received polite but noncommittal letters pointing out the inevitability of the Dutch war against the ‘tyrannical Spaniard’. Echoing Marnix’s words spoken earlier in 1578, the king of Spain was depicted as a threat to world peace as well as to the Empire. Although mediation in the Dutch war was a regular item on the agenda of the diets between 1594 and 1609, nothing happened, except the drafting of plaintive letters to the Dutch states general. There was certainly much to complain about, as Dutch troops operated from time to time on German territory, and behind the scene Dutch diplomats were constantly trying to convince Protestant estates of the Empire to give financial and diplomatic assistance to the Dutch Republic.27 When peace talks between the Dutch and the Spaniards started in 1607, Rudolf II lodged protests with both parties, because according to him the Netherlands were still fiefs of the Empire and therefore bilateral peace talks excluding the emperor, as feudal overlord of the territories

25 Arndt, Das Heilige Römische Reich und die Niederlande, 63–6; Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 162. 26 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 162–8; Arndt, Das Heilige Römische Reich und die Niederlande, 169–74. 27 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 164–7. 214 nicolette mout concerned, were out of order. Neither party paid any attention to this, but the Dutch states general did take the trouble to write an apologetic letter to the emperor, stressing their position as a ‘free country’ which had now reached its complete independence from the Empire. Reproachfully, they added that they had never received any help against the ‘Spanish tyrant’ from any emperor.28 In one respect the treaty of Augsburg had functioned exceedingly well: the Empire never really interfered in Netherlandish affairs. This did not change during the heyday of the Revolt of the Netherlands. The tenuous link between the states general of the Netherlands on the one hand, and the emperor and imperial estates on the other, was maintained at successive diets and in diplomatic correspondence. Meanwhile, the governments in Brussels and Madrid did their best to keep the emperor and the imperial estates out of Netherlandish affairs, and on the whole their efforts met with success. The emperor never became a serious party in the conflict between the Dutch rebels and their legitimate overlord, the king of Spain. The mediation efforts by Maximilian II and Rudolf II posed no threat to the Spanish position, but they were not much of a help either. The war in the Netherlands continued to figure regularly on the agenda of the imperial diets until well into the beginning of the seventeenth century, but no pertinent decisions were ever reached. As we have seen, the diet of 1582 was the last occasion Netherlandish affairs were discussed in depth there.29 The attitude of the rebellious Dutch toward the Empire changed at the end of the century. From then onwards, Dutch foreign policy was solely dictated by the necessity to win the war and to round off the territory of the emerging Republic of the United Provinces. The Republic found its allies in France and England rather than in the Empire, but existing bilateral contacts with several Protestant princes of the Empire were not broken off. In 1636, in the middle of the Thirty Years War, the Dutch desired to negotiate a treaty of neutrality with Emperor Ferdinand II. However, the emperor reminded the Dutch negotiator of the existence of the treaty of Augsburg. He stated that he could not work for peace or neutrality as long as the Dutch did not fulfill their obligations to the Empire as stated in the treaty.30 It must have been one of the last times that the treaty

28 Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 167–8. 29 Arndt, Das Heilige Römische Reich und die Niederlande, 80–3; Mout, ‘Die Niederlande und das Reich’, 168. 30 Arndt, Das Heilige Römische Reich und die Niederlande, 88. core and periphery: the netherlands and the empire 215 of Augsburg was invoked. At that moment, however, nobody seemed to be interested any more in the moot question of the formal relationship between the Netherlands and the Empire. What counted was power politics, not the finer points of constitutional law. Finally, the Dutch Republic had come to occupy its definitive position at the periphery of the Empire and would stay there until the end of its existence in 1795.

The Imperial System in Early Modern Northern Italy: a Web of Dukedoms, Fiefs and Enclaves along the Po

Blythe Alice Raviola

1. From the Padan Network to Reichsitalien

Alongside new studies concerning the genesis and development of early modern states, Italian and foreign historiography during the last two decades has been paying attention to geo-political formations which undermined the process of state formation. Small duchies like Monfer- rato, the Padan network of dominions of the Gonzagas, or fiefs created through imperial concessions for powerful medieval dynasties (e.g. the Del Carrettos in Langhe or the Dorias in Liguria) are now examined with a double perspective. On the one hand, some local researches, without having ideological intentions, underline their role in preserving autonomy in the face of the centripetal force of the emerging modern state. On the other hand, the most current academic interpretations, without neglecting this aspect, consider the survival of these territorial entities as an interesting variation, and a firm proof, of the Holy Roman Empire’s influence in Italian matters. The most important studies on the imperial system in Italy have been conducted by Cesare Mozzarelli and his school. Since the 1980s, their interest is very much focused on the conglomerate of the Gonzaga dukedoms, a group of small territories with which the dukes of Mantua and their collateral lines were invested. After long historiographical neglect, these studies put forward a powerful argument against the idea of an absolute state, then a model that some authors used to explain the growth of Ital- ian states (first and foremost for the dukedom of Savoy).1 The imperial

1 See G. Ricuperati, Le avventure di uno stato ‘ben amministrato’. Rappresentazioni e realtà nello spazio sabaudo tra Ancien Régime e Rivoluzione (Turin, 1994), 7–12; C. Rosso, ‘Il Seicento’, in P. Merlin et al., Il Piemonte sabaudo. Stato e territori in età moderna (Turin, 1994), 173–8; U. Levra, Fare gli Italiani. Memoria e celebrazione del Risorgimento (Turin, 1992); A. Spagnoletti, Le dinastie italiane nella prima età moderna (Bologna, 2003), 10; and now V. Tigrino, ‘Istituzioni imperiali per lo stato sabaudo tra fine dell’antico regime e Restaurazione’, in L’Impero e l’Italia nella prima età moderna/Das Reich und Italien in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. M. Schnettger and M. Verga (Bologna/Berlin, 2006), 179–240. 218 blythe alice raviola fiefs were like spots dyeing the map of states which were looking for their juridical and administrative integration. Their overlords were also trust- worthy political interlocutors, able to influence dynastic strategies, as well as domestic and foreign politics. These issues are well known: Karl Otmar von Aretin and Domenico Sella triggered the discussion by portraying the imperial manoeuvres in Reichsitalien2 and by explaining, first of all for the case of Lombardy, the essential difference between imperial and cameral fiefs.3 More specific studies now help us to see the matter more from the inside. Sabbioneta, Novellara, Castiglione delle Stiviere, Guastalla, Mirandola, Bozzolo were all imperial fiefs trying to transform themselves into small states. Belong- ing to the Gonzaga’s collateral lines, they usually rivaled the main line of the dynasty and looked to the imperial court as the grantor and guardian of their rights. Some of them showed a firm loyalty to the emperor. Novellara, for instance, which had been owned by Feltrino Gonzaga and his heirs since 1371, became part of the Empire only in 1501, when Maximil- ian I granted them the title of counts.4 Other fiefs, like the principality of Mirandola, hold by the Picos family, or the state of Landi, were used as buffer territories by the duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which had been created by Pope Paolo III for his son Alessandro.5 Sabbioneta—whose rise is very much connected with the complex figure of Vespasiano Gonzaga6—and Castiglione7 prospered by using court and dynastic politics to maintain their standing in an area which was only stable in its instability, and which was characterized by an uncertain balance of power for a long time. This state of affairs was only overcome by the end of the ancien régime.8 The most distinctive features of this

2 K.O. von Aretin, ‘L’ordinamento feudale in Italia nel XVI e XVII secolo e le sue rip- ercussioni sulla politica europea’, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, 4 (1978), 51–93. 3 D. Sella, ‘Sotto il dominio della Spagna’, in Sella and C. Capra, Il Ducato di Milano dal 1536 al 1796 (Turin, 1984), 28–35. See also M. Cavallera, ‘Les fiefs impériaux dans l’Italie nord-occidentale au XVIIIe siècle’, in Les enclaves territoriales aux Temps Modernes, XVIe– XVIIIe siècles, ed. P. Delsalle and A. Ferrer (Besançon, 2000), 185–208. 4 V. Davolio, Memorie storiche della contea di Novellara e dei Gonzaghi che vi dominarono (Milan, 1833). Novellara remained an imperial fief untill 1728, when the last marquis died. 5 See G. Tocci, ‘Il ducato di Parma e Piacenza’, in L. Marini et al., I ducati padani, Trento e Trieste (Turin, 1979), 215–356. 6 Vespasiano Gonzaga e il ducato di Sabbioneta, ed. U. Bazzotti et al. (Mantua, 1993). 7 Castiglione delle Stiviere. Un principato imperiale nell’Italia padana, sec. XVI–XVIII, ed. M. Marocchi (Rome, 1996). 8 G. Tocci, ‘Il sistema dei piccoli Stati padani tra Cinque e Seicento’, in Vespasiano Gon- zaga . . . , 11–31. See also G. Chittolini, La formazione dello stato regionale e le istituzioni del the imperial system in early modern northern italy 219

‘sistema di stati padani’ were the hydro-fluvial network on which they were based (that means the control of water/waterways), and their geographical position. Most of these small states were located between bigger dominions and always had to confront Spain and the Empire.9 Guastalla is also a good example of a micro-state which has been involved in Italian and European politics. From the fifteenth century onwards its dukes had diplomatic and marriage policies similar to those of other principalities (Carpi, Piombino, Correggio, the marquisates of Saluzzo and Finale, Landi and the states of Pallavicino). Due to these policies they were able to create a strong network in the region of the Po and to maintain good contacts with the Empire. This is the reason why Guastalla was one of the last imperial fiefs to disappear from the political scene (in 1746) and one of those that was judged favourably by eighteenth-century historiography.10 From this perspective the imperial authority in Reichsitalien comes to the fore with all its force: it was L’Italia degli Austrias.11 The Habsburgs had a double-sided position. Was there co-operation between the Empire and Spain or were there different types of government in both these Habsburg realms? Cinzia Cremonini recently published contributions taking up these questions. She studied the problem of the imperial vicariate and its influence on Italian policy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.12 She reconstructed the role of the Holy Roman Empire in the peninsula during the troubled sixteenth century, pointing out like other scholars—e.g. Aurelio Musi, Gianvittorio Signorotto, Marcello Verga— that it is necessary to reconsider the Spanish supremacy13 in the light of the bipolarity which originated in the reign of Charles V. Not only Madrid,

contado. Secc. XIV–XV (Turin, 1979), and Potere e società negli stati regionali italiani del ’500 e ’600, ed. E. Fasano Guarini (Bologna, 1978). 9 K.O. von Aretin, ‘I Gonzaga e il ducato di Sabbioneta nelle relazioni con il Sacro Romano Impero della nazione tedesca’, in Vespasiano Gonzaga . . ., 315–23. 10 E. Bartoli, ‘Guastalla. 1401–1746. Da Feudo a Stato in Antico Regime. Evoluzione comparata in area centro-settentrionale’, Archivio storico per gli Antichi Stati Guastallesi, 1 (2000), 3–35, and F. Canova, ‘Il ducato di Guastalla da Ratisbona alla Pace dei Pirenei. Pedina o contraente necessario?’, ibid., 2 (2001), 3–59. 11 L’Italia degli Austrias. Monarchia cattolica e domini italiani nei secoli XVI e XVII, ed. G. Signorotto (Brescia,1993), and Dilatar l’Impero in Italia. Asburgo e Italia nel primo Set- tecento, ed. M. Verga (Rome, 1995). 12 C. Cremonini, Impero e feudi italiani fra Cinque e Settecento (Rome, 2004); ead., ‘I feudi imperiali italiani fra Sacro Romano Impero e monarchia cattolica’, in L’Impero e l’Italia, 41–66; ead., ‘La Plenipotenza e i feudi imperiali italiani tra Sacro Romano Impero e monarchia cattolica’, in I feudi imperiali in Italia tra XVI e XVII secolo, ed. Cremonini and R. Musso (Rome, 2010). 13 R. Quazza, Storia politica d’Italia. Preponderanza spagnuola, 1559–1700 (Milan, 1950). 220 blythe alice raviola but also Vienna, with its court full of ministers of the Italian states trying to improve or maintain their dynastic and juridical status, was a centre of gravity. Friedrich Edelmayer pointed out14 that the multi-layered imperial system in Italy evolved in the Middle Ages, during the struggle between the Empire and the papacy (which had its feudal fiefs too, above all in the South). In Charles V the northern Italian vassals found a new protector who guaranteed their survival. The principal mediators of the Holy Roman Empire in Italy were the vicars, who were originally deputed to control the juridical and fiscal matters of local imperial fiefs.15 Only after 1715, and very much related to the figure of Carlo Borromeo Arese,16 did they became ministers of highest importance in foreign politics, involved in questions of succession and problems of the confiscation of imperial territories. Borromeo Arese himself in 1716 bought Maccagno, one of the few imperial fiefs in Lombardy, which played a central role in the commercial relationships between Milan, Piedmont and Switzerland.17 The political role of the imperial fiefs in Italy is now thoroughly treated in the bilingual volume L’Impero e l’Italia nella prima età moderna/Das Reich und Italien in der Frühen Neuzeit, edited by Matthias Schnettger and Marcello Verga (2006). The contributions touch on all major problems— the status of imperial fiefs, their diplomatic relationships with the Empire, military contributions, and the cultural impact of imperial titles. Further- more, they reassess the role of the Empire in the peninsula, which had been despised by the historiography of the Risorgimento during the process of Italian nation-building.

2. Piedmont, Liguria and the Imperial Fiefs

In his economic analysis of the republic of Genoa, Edoardo Grendi developed a ‘Ligurian model of the ancien régime’.18 He studied the system of

14 F. Edelmayer, ‘Carlo V, Ferdinando I e l’Italia imperiale’, in Sardegna, Spagna e Stati italiani nell’età di Carlo V, ed. B. Anatra and F. Manconi (Rome, 2001), 17–23. 15 C. Cremonini, ‘La rivolta di Castiglione delle Stiviere negli atti della Plenipotenza dei feudi imperiali italiani’, in Castiglione delle Stiviere, 91–116; M. Viora, ‘Sui rapporti tra il Sacro Romano Impero e l’Italia nei secoli recenti’, in Annali triestini di diritto, economia e politica, 10 (1939); A. Sisto, I feudi imperiali del Tortonese, sec. XI–XIX, (Turin, 1956). 16 Cremonini, Impero e feudi italiani, where the richest pages are about Borromeo and his position between Vienna and Milan. Biographical notes in G. Ricuperati, ‘Borromeo Arese, Carlo’, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani [DBI]), 13 (Rome, 1971), 81–4. 17 Cavallera, ‘Les fiefs impériaux’, 188–92. 18 E. Grendi, Il Cervo e la repubblica. Il modello ligure di antico regime (Turin, 1993), and O. Raggio, Faide e parentele. Lo stato genovese visto dalla Fontanabuona (Turin, 1990). the imperial system in early modern northern italy 221 production and the social life of the small village of Cervo to analyse the role and influence of capital and weak state power. Like Cervo other places along the shoreline, which were also formally depending on Genoa, used to have strong influence in their particular territories, and certain family networks were able to modify the course of Ligurian politics. Accord- ing to Grendi, this polycentric model allows us to interpret the whole of ancien-régime society. It has indeed been taken up by many historians and spread widely within the field. But it seems to be particularly useful to examine regions with high feudal density. So it is not surprising that it inspired many studies about other Ligurian towns19 and about micro- regions located between the Republic and Piedmont: Langhe,20 Mioglia and Sassello,21 the Belbo and Bormida valleys,22 and, moving further northwards, the marquisate of Cocconato.23 All these areas comprised imperial fiefs of medieval origin, aristocratic houses defending imperial privileges, as well as commercial and military roads. It is also true of the Sabaudian space that, for the last twenty years or so, it has been made to look more fragmentary as a state then the traditional literature wanted to show. It was not only Angelo Torre who reassessed the role of the small Piedmontese imperial fiefs and their alternative political structures, but also historians studying institutions have underlined the strong persistence of many traditional dominions: first of all the marquisates of Saluzzo and Monferrato,24 but also the county of Asti and the marquisate of Ceva, which manouvered in the complex power balance between France, Spain and the Empire.25 In the next section I will pay attention to the attempts by the dukes of Savoy to acquire the

19 V. Tigrino, ‘Castelli di carte. Giurisdizione e storia locale nel Settecento in una dis- puta fra Sanremo e Genova, 1729–35’, Quaderni storici, 101 (1999), 475–506. 20 A. Torre, ‘Faide, fazioni e partiti, ovvero la ridefinizione della politica nei feudi imperiali delle Langhe tra Sei e Settecento’, Quaderni storici, 63 (1986), 775–810, and id., ‘Del Carretto, Girolamo Maria’, DBI, 36 (Rome, 1988), 426–9. 21 E. Grendi, ‘La pratica dei confini. Mioglia contro Sassello, 1715–45’, Quaderni storici, 63 (1986), 811–45. 22 Tra Belbo e Bormida. Luoghi e itinerari di un patrimonio culturale, ed. A. Torre and E. Ragusa (Asti, 2003). 23 M. Battistoni and S. Lombardini, ‘Strade e territori ai confini del Monferrato nella prima età moderna’, in Cartografia del Monferrato. Geografia spazi interni e confini di un piccolo Stato italiano fra Medioevo e Ottocento, ed. B.A. Raviola (Milan, 2007), 89–131. 24 See Ludovico I marchese di Saluzzo. Un principe tra Francia e Italia, 1416–75, and Ludovico II marchese di Saluzzo, condottiero, uomo di Stato e mecenate, 1475–1504, both ed. R. Comba (Cuneo, 2003–5), and B.A. Raviola, ‘Un complesso intreccio di giurisdizioni. I feudi imperiali del Monferrato gonzaghesco’, in I feudi imperiali in Italia. 25 P. Merlin, ‘Il Piemonte nel sistema imperiale di Carlo V’, in Sardegna, Spagna e Stati italiani, 265–87. 222 blythe alice raviola

marquisates of Desana and Zuccarello and the imperial fief of Monferrato. This process, which is quite well known for the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, actually started already in the sixteenth century, parallel to the Italian policies of Charles V.

2.1. Desana On 26 October 1529 Duke Carlo III of Savoy gave detailed instructions to the president of the council of the estates of Piedmont who was about to be sent to the court of Vienna. The aim of his mission was to talk with the emperor about the Sabaudian pretensions to the kingdom of Cyprus, and about Monferrato and the marquisates of Desana, Cocconato and Incisa.26 It was during the period when most of the Italian dynasties—Paleologo, Saluzzo, Gonzaga, Sforza, Medici—were looking for imperial protection to obtain confirmation of possessions, rank promotions, and new territories.27 Carlo III was fighting on many fronts: with marriage strategies (he married Beatrice of Portugal, the emperor’s sister-in-law); with plans to enlarge his influence on the sea using Villefranche harbour and the town of Nice (proposed as residence of the Order of Malta);28 and, finally, with the building of a loyal domestic aristocracy.29 It is interesting to note that one of the first collections of imperial titles that had been granted to the house of Savoy was drawn up in 1528.30 Gaining Monferrato was pivotal in his strategy: if it was possible to prove that this imperial fief was Sabaudian, it would have been easy to get the rest. The ambassador had to talk about ‘les grans biens . . . gratuites que

26 Archivio di Stato di Torino [ASTO], Corte, Materie politiche per rapporto all’Estero [MPRE], Negoziazioni Austria, mazzo [m.] 1, fascicolo [fasc.] 4, also quoted in Merlin, ‘Il Piemonte nel sistema imperiale’, 270, 285. 27 on Monferrato and the succession of Paleologo, see R. Oresko and D. Parrott, ‘The Sovereignty of Monferrato and the Citadel of Casale as European Problems in the Early Modern Period’, in Stefano Guazzo e Casale fra Cinque e Seicento, ed. D. Ferrari (Rome, 1997), 11–86; Spagnoletti, Le dinastie italiane,15–18, 26–7, and Raviola, ‘Monferrato gonzaghesco’, 3–36. Regarding imperial policy in Italy: P. Merlin, La forza e la fede. Vita di Carlo V (Roma/Bari, 2004), 110–24. 28 B.A. Raviola, ‘La frontiera sul mare: i governatori sabaudi di Nizza e Villafranca tra XVI e XVII secolo’, in Frontières dans la ville, frontières de la ville: les échanges économiques et leurs acteurs, ed. R. Escallier, forthcoming. 29 A. Merlotti, ‘Disciplinamento e contrattazione. Dinastia, nobiltà e corte nel Piemonte sabaudo da Carlo II alla Guerra civile’, in L’affermarsi della corte sabauda. Dinastie, poteri, élites in Piemonte e Savoia fra tardo medioevo e prima età moderna, ed. P. Bianchi and L.C. Gentile (Turin, 2006), 227–83. 30 ASTO, Corte, MPRE, Materie d’Impero [M.I], Cat. I, Investiture, m. 1, fasc. 1, 1195–1528, ‘Inventaro antico. . .di diversi diplomi delli Imperatori a favore della Real Casa di Savoia’. the imperial system in early modern northern italy 223 la maison de Monferrat a heu de ceste cy et que le dict marquis [Giovan Giorgio Paleologo] a estè mal servy par ceulx qui jusques cy luy ont cellè la veritè’.31 Desana and Incisa, which both were imperial fiefs, needed Sabau- dian protection: the former because its marquises were struggling with their subjects, the latter because Oddone of Incisa and his heirs needed help against the Paleologos.32 The same holds true for the marquisate of Cocconato, a small enclave of fiefs formally depending on Monferrato, but put under the domination of a complex consortile which established a kind of semi-independence and economic autonomy.33 It was necessary to gain ‘la fidelitè, obeissance et subiection que les gentilhommes et com- munautez du Coconà luy doibuent jouxte la forme du privillege du feu Empereur Maximillian’. On 7 February 1570 Emanuele Filiberto sent a similar document to his envoy at the court of Vienna. After complimenting Emperor Maximilian II on his daughter’s wedding, Baldassarre Ravoire della Croce should address the problem of the title of the grand-duke of Tuscany: ‘sono più di tricento anni che li nostri antiqui portavano et usavano della corona regia’—wrote the duke—‘e se esso [Cosimo I de’Medici] ha conseguito la possanza regia, noi la tenemo imperiale che è più, sì come dicono gl’antiqui et mod- erni privilegi imperiali del nostro vicariato perpetuo’.34 Due to diplomas granted by Emperor Charles IV, Carlo II obtained concessions regarding imperial fiefs in Piedmontese and Ligurian dioceses. They regulated ecclesiastical jurisdictions, and sanctioned that towns in dioceses on Sabau- dian territory (Asti, Vercelli, Nice, Ventimiglia, Grasse, Glandeves and Vence) had to be obedient to the duke of Savoy (and, through him, to the emperor).35 Trouble was caused by Desana, located in the diocese of Ver- celli and owned by the ancient house of Tizzone, because it was reluctant to respect his juridical authority. Emanuele Filiberto was happy for them

31 Ibid., Negoziazioni Austria, m. 1, fasc. 4. 32 B.A. Raviola, Tra Monferrato e Astigiano. Nuclei di potere ed élites in Valle Belbo nella prima età moderna, in Tra Belbo e Bormida. Luogi e itinerari di un patrimonio culturale, ed. E. Ragusa and A. Torre (Asti, 2003), 47–55. 33 Battistoni and Lombardini, ‘Strade e territori’. 34 ASTO, Corte, MPRE, Negoziazioni Vienna, m. 1, fasc. 10. With a letter of 1 Dec. 1566 Ravoire had been charged to swear an oath for his master to the emperor (ivi, M.I., m. 1, fasc. 7). On the rivalry between Savoy and the Medicis: F. Angiolini, ‘Medici e Savoia. Contese per la precedenza e rivalità di rango in età moderna’, in L’affermarsi della corte sabauda, 435–79. 35 On the Savoyard use of ecclesiastical jurisdiction: P. Cozzo, La geografia celeste dei duchi di Savoia. Religione, devozioni e sacralità in uno Stato di età moderna, secoli XVI–XVII (Bologna, 2006). 224 blythe alice raviola to keep their marquisate to secure the commercial routes between Mon- ferrato and Piedmont. However, the problem was that they did not have any imperial concession. The position of the Tizzones was different. They were closely related to the local episcopate and to families from Lombardy and Monferrine, and they were devoted to the Empire; indeed, many of them, by the eighteenth century, had the official title of imperial vicar. In 1582 Carlo Emanuele I still had to justify his conduct towards Desana to the emperor. He had occupied the marquisate, presenting himself as an arbiter in the struggles over the succession between Count Agostino and one of his brothers.36 The duke of Savoy claimed the role of imperial vicar to prevent Guglielmo Gonzaga—who had legal rights to Desana—from taking this title. He also chose to attract the Tizzones into his clientele network by granting them offices, fiefs and honours. Alessandro Tizzone of Crescentino, even if he contracted two marriages with Lombard noble- women, became a knight of the order of saints Maurizio and Lazzaro,37 starting a new practice of fidelity to the Savoyard dynasty.38 However, parts of the family remained close to the Empire and at the end of the seventeenth century they started to fight against their relatives. Giorgio Emanuele Tiz- zone, one of Carlo Emanuele II’s pages, spent his time and ressources to save his stake in Desana from the pull of his cousin, the Marquis of Cres- centino, who presented his claims in Vienna, Milan and Casale.39

2.2. The fiefs of Zuccarello and Langhe The matter of the imperial fiefs became increasingly important in Pied- montese diplomacy, first and foremost in the cases regarding Cocconato, Zuccarello and Langhe. The end of the sixteenth century was a period of intensifying rational construction of borders40—not only in Piedmont.41

36 ASTO, Corte, MPRE, Negoziazioni Austria, m. 1, fasc. 13, 14 Feb. 1582, ‘Istruzione al conte Francesco Rovero di Ponderano spedito all’Imperatore . . . per notiziar S.M. del preso possesso di Dezana come vicario imperiale. . .’ 37 A. Manno, Il patriziato subalpino (2 vols, Florence, 1895–1906), 171. 38 The strategy worked with other families: see B.A. Raviola, ‘Servitori bifronti. La nobiltà del Monferrato tra Casale, Mantova e Torino’, in L’affermarsi della corte sabauda, 481–505. 39 ASTO, Corte, Materie politiche per rapporto all’Interno, Lettere di particolari, T, m. 13, letters written by Giorgio Emanuele (1659–94). See also M. Mariani, ‘Desana-Mirandola’, Rivista italiana di numismatica, 7, fasc. iv (1895), 1–8. 40 Rappresentare uno Stato. Carte e cartografi degli Stati sabaudi dal XVI al XVIII secolo, ed. R. Comba and P. Sereno (2 vols, Turin etc., 2002), and Il teatro delle terre. Cartografia sabauda tra Alpi e pianura, ed. I. Massabò Ricci et al. (Savigliano, 2006). 41 D. Nordman, Frontières de France. De l’espace au territoire, XVIe–XIXe siècle (Paris, 1998). the imperial system in early modern northern italy 225

During the war of Provence the marquisate of Saluzzo (1601) was acquired42 and Carlo Emanuele tried to conquer other territories to integrate them into his realm. The marquisate of Zuccarello was a complex of small fiefs, located between western Liguria and the province of Cuneo. They had belonged to the powerful house of Del Carretto, hailing from Savona, which was influential in many areas of the republic of Genoa (Albenga, Finale, Cairo, Altare). The fragmentation of lineage; the rivalry with the Doria and the Grimaldi; the changing international constellations after Cateau- Cambrésis; and, finally, Genoan fiscal power led them into a crisis. Scipione del Carretto, who owed the Republic 23,500 gold scudos, needed money to maintain three sisters and pay a pension to his uncle and to his brothers. Therefore, he decided to sell Zuccarello to Carlo Emanuele I. The duke of Savoy could not receive a better proposal: because he wanted to control the territory around Nice those villages were ‘vicini alle terre dello Stato suo dalla parte del marchesato di Ceva, contingui al luogo di Garezzo . . . et inoltre . . . sono sopra la strada per andar in Rivera alle sue terre di Oneglia et altre . . . là onde gli mettea comodo che se unissero alli soi Stati di qua da’ monti’.43 But there were obstacles to the deal. The first problem was that Scipione did not have the formal permission of the emperor; and the second problem was that the marquis, charged with murder, was awaiting his trial in Casale, the Monferrato capital of the Gonzaga. Carlo Emanuele, as the imperial vicar, had to persuade the emperor to change the court of justice. It was necessary to transfer the inquiry into ‘altro tribunale che quello di Casale a lui suspettissimo per multe cause . . . quando piacia a S.M. dellegare la causa a Milano o Roma, Ferrara, Parma o altro luogo in Italia non suspeto’. The Zuccarello affaire was related to the struggle over control of Finale, the Ligurian marquisate which has been studied in its capacity as an imperial fief by Fredrich Edelmayer,44 and which became a central junction on the Spanish road to Flanders in the seventeenth century. Finale was a target for major European political powers like Genoa, Spain, and Aus- tria; and also for those with less competitive resources like Turin, Mantua

42 L’annessione sabauda del marchesato di Saluzzo. Tra dissidenza religiosa e ortodossia cattolica, secc. XVI–XVIII, ed. M. Fratini (Turin, 2004). 43 ASTO, Corte, MPRE, Negoziazioni Vienna, m. 1, fasc. 16, 22 May 1591, ‘Istruzioni del duca . . . al senator Goveano spedito in Allemagna ed incarricato di procurare la conferma imperiale sul contratto d’acquisto di Zuccarello . . .’ 44 Maximilian II, Philipp II und Reichsitalien: die Auseinandersetzungen um das Reichs lehen Finale in Ligurien (Stuttgart, 1988). 226 blythe alice raviola and some Ligurian noble families (above all the Spinolas). Zuccarello had been held by a line of the Del Carretto since 1162. In 1558 the last marquis, Alfonso II, fell into disgrace owing to a revolt and was forced to leave the territory to imperial arbitration.45 The dukes of Savoy attempted to profit from the weakness of the house of the Del Carrettos and to erode their properties. In 1565 Emanuele Filiberto attempted to expand his vicariate over the fiefs of Maro, Laigueglia, Garlenda, Desana, Frinco and Spinola and Lascaris. Furthermore he instructed his ambassador de la Ravoire to defend his rights in Murialdo, Paroldo and Saliceto.46 Carlo Emanuele continually tried to obtain Zuccarello by using strong words47 and promising money to the Court of Vienna.48 He also tried to follow the example of the Gonzagas49 and considered forming marriage alliances with the imperial house, well knowing the predisposition of the Habsburgs to this kind of policy.50 He offered one of his daughters to Emperor Maximilian and to Archduke Matthias and presented himself as a Catholic champion. Alongside these offers the duke of Savoy claimed his rights to Zuccarello and to the imperial fiefs of Langhe again and again. To make his point he basically employed three arguments: first, the fiefs bordered on his state and therefore they should naturally belong to him;51 second, they were part of Sabaudian dioceses (Acqui, Alba and Albenga);52 and third, they were held by reprobate families and were prone to become smuggling areas. This last argument soon became the principal one: it was necessary to demonstrate to the Empire the equation imperial fiefs = illegality. Vittorio Amedeo I suggested in 1637 to his secret envoy Luigi Tana that the emperor had to know that his Langhe fiefs (particularly Spigno) ‘non solo altro che asillo de assassini, di falsi monetarii e d’altre mille abominazioni, i quali delitti non vengono castigati a Milano o per la

45 F. Messea, Le convenzioni cesaree col Finale Ligure. Codici e provvedimenti politici fina- resi dal 1265 al 1733 (Genua, 1904). 46 ASTO, Corte, MPRE, M.I., Cat. I, Investiture, m. 1, fasc. 9, 17 Dec. 1565. 47 Ibid., fasc. 18, 1604, ‘Istruzioni al conte di Lucerna per suo viaggio a Vienna’. 48 Ibid., fasc. 20, May 1607, ‘Istruzioni al conte di Lucerna . . . per chiedere . . . l’investitura di Zuccarello’: the duke could ‘offerir qualche dinaro’ extra to the 40.000 scudos paid as imperial contributions. 49 C. Mozzarelli, ‘I Gonzaga di Mantova e l’Impero’, in I feudi imperiali. 50 R.J.W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy. 1550–1700. An Interpretation (Oxford, 1979). 51 ASTO, Corte, MPRE, Negoziazioni Vienna, m. 1, fasc. 23, 1610, ‘Istruzioni . . . al conte Guido di San Giorgio . . . ad effetto di . . . intavolare le negoziazioni per l’acquisto dei feudi delle Langhe’. For a long time—it is said—the house of Savoy has desired to ‘conseguire le terre imperiali delle Langhe, che sono qui a’ nostri confini’. 52 Ibid., fasc. 24, 29 Oct. 1612, ‘Istruzioni . . . al marchese di Lullin’. the imperial system in early modern northern italy 227 distanza o per la convenienza di fomentare quelli tristi a fin d’inquietare i nostri confini’.53 But the charge of corruption could be misunderstood and read as an allegation caused by the rather strong exercise of imperial authority at that time. As a result, it is not surprising that some members of the Del Carretto family became leaders of an anti-Sabaudian party, which was very popular at the court of Vienna. By studying Girolamo Maria del Car- retto of Balestrino, Torre discovered the existence of a strong Ghibelline faction which was able to disturb Piedmontese diplomacy in Austria for a long time. From the 1680s onwards until the peace of Utrecht and also during the war of the Polish Succession, Girolamo Maria and other vassals mounted strong resistance to the dynasty; their target was the ‘conservazi- one dell’autonomia politica di una regione caratterizzata da un profondo intreccio di giurisdizioni lungo le quali si dipanavano numerose vie com- merciali tra litorale ligure e pianura padana, usate per il contrabbando del sale verso il Piemonte’.54 In the end they lost their personal war, but the creation of a Sabaudian imperial commission in 1742 was less a success than a declaration of inadequacy: to bring back those lands to political and fiscal obedience remained one of the last challenges of the new kingdom of Sardinia.

2.3. Monferrato’s Imperial fiefs and the problem of the vicariate The main Gonzaga dominions—the duchies of Mantua and Monferrato— were originally also imperial fiefs.55 But at the beginning of the sixteenth century Monferrato also incorporated autonomous enclaves and other imperial fiefs. The marquisate of Incisa, for example, was a semi- independent ensemble of villages around Nizza. Monferrato, hold by the eponymous family until Marquis Guglielmo IX, retained its political influence until the end of the fifteenth century and beyond.56

53 Ibid., fasc. 43. Similar arguments were used for Lombard fiefs: see Cavallera, ‘Les fiefs impériaux’. 54 Torre, ‘Del Carretto, Girolamo Maria’, 427. 55 B.A. Raviola, ‘Monferrato gonzaghesco’, and S. Veronelli, ‘Strategie politiche di un piccolo stato a fine Cinquecento: il Ducato di Mantova fra Impero e monarchia cattolica’, in La Lombardia spagnola. Nuovi indirizzi di ricerca, ed. E. Brambilla and G. Muto (Milan, 1997), 389–404. 56 G. Albenga, ‘Il marchesato d’Incisa dalle origini al 1514’, Miscellanea di Storia italiana, 4, vol. xi, (Turin, 1970); M. Pasqua, Il marchesato d’Incisa dal 1514 al tramonto della feudal- ità in età moderna (Incisa Scapaccino, 2000); B.A. Raviola, ‘Tra Monferrato e Astigiano. 228 blythe alice raviola

The marquisate of Cocconato operated as an economic island. Its overlords—the counts of Radicati, who were divided into many lines— became able to control merchants, traffic, and money, which all travelled along the duty-free roads, coming from Liguria and Monferrato and heading to the state of Milan and to Switzerland. Some fiefs, like Belvedere and Castelnuovo Calcea, close to the county of Asti, were medieval relics of merchant family properties. Mombercelli was divided into three jurisdictions: one of them was imperial, depending on Milan, one was Sabaudian, and one belonged to Monferrato.57 Most of the imperial fiefs registered by the chamber of Monferrato—more than fifteen—were divided into many quarters of jurisdiction or spread out in different domains. The marquisate of Zuccarello, claimed by the house of Savoy, also featured on the Gonzagas’ list. The same holds true for Desana, Frinco, Gorzegno, Novello and other places at the border to Savoyard territories. This situation led to increasing conflicts on different levels. Fights over jurisdiction between the senate in Turin and the chamber of Monferrato became frequent from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards. From the seventeenth, Sabaudian recourses to the Empire to gain recognition of the imperial vicariate in Monferrato became frequent too. At the end of the second war of Mantuan Succession58 Vittorio Amedeo I obtained Alba and about seventy fiefs in its province, most of them imperial. After this partial triumph, his successors tried to insist on their vicariate rights in Vienna, particularly after 1657, when Emperor Ferdinand III appointed the duke of Mantua, Carlo II Gonzaga Nevers, as his imperial vicar and commissioner in Italy.59 In those years many Savoyard ministers wrote papers laying out historical arguments with which their souvereign could support the claim for his privileges. Senator Gianfrancesco Cauda of Caselette proposed a plan to acquire the vicariate without disturbing the emperor’s precedence. The duke of Savoy would have acted as a guardian of imperial fiefs, helping

Nuclei di potere ed élites in Valle Belbo nella prima età moderna’, in Tra Belbo e Bormida, 47–56. 57 Ead., ‘Un feudo tripartito: Mombercelli, terra imperiale, e i suoi feudatari durante il dominio dello Stato di Milano, 1538–1736’, in Mombercelli (Asti, 1999), 29–74. 58 See D. Parrott, ‘The Mantuan Succession, 1627–31: A Sovereignty Dispute in Early Modern Europe’, English Historical Review, 112 (1997), 20–65, and id., ‘A prince souverain and the French Crown: Charles de Nevers, 1580–1637’, in Royal and Republican Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe, ed. R. Oresko et al. (Cambridge, 1997), 149–87. 59 ASTO, Corte, MPRE, M.I., Cat. II, Vicariato imperiale, m. 1, fasc. 6, 18 Feb. 1657, ‘Copia di diploma dell’imperatore Ferdinando III’. the imperial system in early modern northern italy 229 their vassals to maintain law and order. He would have issued investitures, but always in the name of the emperor, and—only after the extinction of local dynasties—he would have obtained his own imperial investiture.60 The senate’s president, Giampaolo Peirani, on the other hand, referred in his argument back to the connection between vicariate and dioceses, by remembering Maximilian I’s concessions to Duke Filiberto of Savoy regarding Cocconato,61 and by approving the extension of the vicariate over the dioceses of Alba, Acqui and Vercelli after the peace of Cherasco. In 1690 Vittorio Amedeo II bought other imperial fiefs of Monferrato,62 and with an imperial decree signed by Joseph I in June 170863 he acquired the whole dukedom. In the same year Peirani wrote six enthusiastic and militant Discourses.64 They aimed to establish a Sabaudian tradition, without exalting the Saxon origin of the dynasty, by following the new model of court historiography (Guichenon, Lama).65 Peirani enumerates the counts and dukes of Savoy and shows their long and loyal service to the emperors. Obviously, their reward was the vicariate: ‘sono già scorsi quasi sette secoli da che furono li duchi di Savoia fregiati di quest’honore.’66 The second speech, like the fourth, is about a group of territories called the church fiefs of Asti, formally dependent on the papacy. By putting these ecclesiastical fiefs and the princedom of Masserano (subject of the third discourse) on a par with the the imperial fiefs, the author was performing a political operation. By subsuming everything under the label of a vicariate, jurisdictional differences were levelled. The intention becomes evident with the fiefs of Langhe. First of all Peirani does not call them imperial, but rather states that they pretended to be imperial. Then he explains that their vassals simply had to obey the authority vested in the dioceses of Asti, Alba and Acqui.

60 Ibid., Cat. II, Vicariato imperiale, m. 1, fasc. 10, ‘Riflessi del conte di Caselette circa il vicariato sovra li feudi imperiali’. Cauda (1601–63) was lecturer at Turin University, fiscal lawyer, president of the court of the county of Asti and the marquisate of Ceva (1642) and first president of the audit office. 61 The paper of Peirani, belonging to a powerful family of Nice, is in ASTO, Corte, MPRE, M.I., Cat. II, Vicariato imperiale, m. 1, fasc. 11, ‘Mémoire touchant le Vicariat Imperial’. 62 Cairo, Montenotte, Rocchetta di Cairo, Mioglia, Spigno, Bardineto, Cengio, Rocchetta di Cengio, Rocchetta Tanaro, Rocca d’Arazzo, Frinco, Belvedere, Vinchio, Castelnuovo and Mombercelli. 63 Raviola, ‘Monferrato gonzaghesco’, 423–7. 64 ASTO, Corte, MPRE, M.I., Cat. II, Vicariato imperiale, m. 1, fasc. 13. 65 G. Ricuperati, ‘Fra corte e Stato: la storia di casa Savoia dal Guichenon al Lama’, in his Le avventure di uno stato, 19–56. 66 ASTO, Corte, MPRE, M.I., Cat. II, Vicariato imperiale, m. 1, fasc. 13, ‘Parere’, p. 1. 230 blythe alice raviola

Peirani’s words seem to be a triumph of Sabaudian diplomacy. How- ever, the opposition of the Ghibelline party in Vienna managed to trouble Vittorio Amedeo’s satisfaction. On 29 July 1709 the emperor revoked Savoyard rights to the fiefs of Langhe and Monferrato by instructing their vassals to obey only him. This was the starting-point for a new diplomatic battle in which Pierre Mellarède,67 Vittorio Amedeo’s ambassador in Vienna, played a major role. He and a small number of advisers needed to find convincing solutions for the pressing problem. It appears to be a boring contest to study: there are a large number of papers written from the end of the seventeenth century until the second half of the eighteenth, and most of them are wearisomely repetitive. But this repetition is a fil rouge: the key was to establish and extend the vicariate rights to every part of the state, and moreover to the whole of Italy. Everything that happened in the imperial system—a new alliance, the death of the Emperor, a possible war—could be used to prove their claims. When Joseph I died,68 or during international meetings,69 Vittorio Amedeo and his son Carlo Emanuele I constantly tried to administrate the vicariate, not only over Monferrato and Langhe, but over every imperial fief and vassal in Italy.70 Savoy’s role as a political interlocutor became continously stronger. And after the concession granted by Emperor Francis I on 6 June 1755 the aim was to legitimize it. This can be illustrated by an Advice signed by Foncet de Montailleur in 1762 and above all by the voluminous writings of the lawyer Carlo Montagnini. Foncet, who tried to define the borders with France and clearly wrote ‘qu’il ne s’agit, au fond, que d’un seul vicariat imperial qui . . . est devenu général pour toute l’Italie, et qui pour l’exercise a été restraint jusqu’à présent aux Etats de la domination du Roi’.71 At this time he thought that it was impossible to limit Sabaudian rights to the

67 Raviola, ‘Un complesso intreccio di giurisdizioni’. 68 See the papers about the ‘interregno’ in ASTO, Corte, MPRE, M.I., Cat. II, Vicariato imperiale, m. 1, fascc. 19–20. 69 Ibid., fasc. 26, 1726, ‘Memoria sovra la ragione del vicariato . . . sovra tutta quella parte del ducato di Monferrato . . . e sulle province d’Alessandria, Valenza, Lomellina e Valle Sesia . . . a l’occasione del congresso di Cambray’ (anonymous). 70 Ibid., fasc. 27, 1733, ‘Voto del fiscale imperiale aulico de Valdstetten tendente a pro- vare che il vicariato della Real Casa di Savoia non comprende indistintamente tutti gli Stati del Sacro Romano Impero’.The idea was not new: from the sixteenth century it was common opinion that the imperial vicar should be considered the most important Italian prince: Edelmayer, ‘Carlo V’, 20. 71 ASTO, Corte, MPRE, M.I., Cat. II, Vicariato imperiale, fasc. 32, 10 Jan. 1762, ‘Réflexions sur l’origine, la nature et les droits du vicariat imperial de la Royal Maison de Savoye’, and Cat. III, Diete d’Impero, m. 2, fasc. 29, ‘Memoria formata dal . . . Foncet sul luogo e rango che spetta alla Real Casa di Savoja . . . nelle diete dell’Impero’. the imperial system in early modern northern italy 231 fundamental diploma granted by Charles IV in 1356. Montagnini, trying to order the existing literature on vicariates in the archives of Savoy, concentrated on three elements: the origins of the Sabaudian vicariate; its exercise in the kingdom; and, finally, its extention to all Italian states.72 His troubled manuscripts reflect the difficulties and confusions this subject caused. From tradition (diplomas collected over centuries), via history (Montagnini quotes Guichenon and other scholars) and the comparison with other Italian dukedoms (Milan, Mantua, Mirandola, Parma, Modena) to juridical knowledge, every argument employed is focused on proving that the king of Sardinia was the only Italian vicar and that his position was on a par with that of the other two perpetual vicars, the electors of the Palatinate and of Saxony. This paper war was officially finished in the 1740s, when most of the fiefs lost their independence. But during the negotiation of the peace of Aachen, when Piedmont and Austrian Lombardy defined their borders,73 the heritage of the imperial fiefs along the eastern border of Savoyard territory became a sensitive question. Not only Monferrato and Langhe, but also the state of Doria—a powerful enclave at the junction with the Vige- vanasco (which was given to Piedmont), Piacentino (now belonging to the house of Bourbon), the republic of Genoa and Tuscany74—interrupted the contours and the fiscal policy of the kingdom of Sardinia.

3. Open Questions and Possible Comparisons

Northern Italy was throughout the early modern period and until the second half of the eighteenth century strewn with small and medium-sized

72 Ibid., Cat. II, Vicariato imperiale, m. 1, 1762, ‘Discorso dell’avvocato Montagnini I, sopra l’origine, progresso e stato attuale del vicariato imperiale in generale; II, sopra il vicariato perpetuo spettante a S.M. in quella parte de’ suoi Stati che rileva dall’Impero; III, sopra il vicariato generale dell’impero spettante alla Real Casa sopra tutti li Stati del Regno d’Italia’. See also ibid., fasc. 33, 10 Jan. 1771, ‘Scritto dell’avvocato Montagnini circa il vicariato perpetuo concesso a S.M. dall’Impero ne’ feudi e terre delle Langhe’, and ibid., Cat. III, Diete d’Impero, m. 2, fasc. 30, March 1773, ‘Scritti formati dall’avvocato Montag- nini d’ordine di S.M. riguardanti le Diete imperiali’. Abbot Montagnini (Trino 1730—Turin 1790), was envoy to Vienna, minister in Regensburg (1773), ambassador to Holland (1778) and president of the Savoy archives: see Tigrino, ‘Istituzioni imperiali’. 73 B.A. Raviola, ‘Disciplinare la frontiera: l’acquisizione delle province di nuovo acquisto e la ridefinizione del confine orientale’, in Il teatro delle terre, 161–82. 74 On this: Sisto, I feudi imperiali del Tortonese. In 1760 the Dorias achieved the erection to a principality of the marquisate of Torriglia and Santo Stefano: ASTO, Corte, MPRE, M.I., Cat. II, Vicariato imperiale, fasc. 33, 1771, ‘Scritto’. 232 blythe alice raviola imperial fiefs. Recent historiography has contributed to their analysis but a diplomatic history of the small Italian states, particularly in their relation to the Empire and its important presence in the peninsula,75 is still missing. For another aspects of this let us return to Peirani’s Discourses. The senator put papal fiefs on a par with imperial fiefs.76 Some of them were ‘occupati nel Monferrato dal duca di Mantova’,77 but they were located in the diocese of Asti, and consequently they were Sabaudian. A similar point of view was adopted for the ecclesiastical princedom of Masserano, in the diocese of Vercelli. Its overlords used to obey the pope (representing the ‘superior church’), but they were first invested by the bishop (the ‘inferior church’), a vassal of the duke of Savoy.78 This captious explanation points to another unsolved issue: the relationship between Reich- sitalien and the Church.79 The medieval struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines instilled a particular tension into early modern Italian politics that had an effect on feudal matters too. Once again, the Savoyard case is telling,80 for it involved not only imperial fiefs, but also pontifical ones, depending on the pope as supreme authority. Masserano, held by the house of Ferrero Fieschi since the fifteenth century,81 was elevated to a marquisate by Pope Paul III Farnese. And it is interesting (though not surprising) to observe that the pope who created the duchy of Parma and Piacenza also favoured the establishment of a small ecclesiastical state in the heart of the Sabaudian dominions. A group of small fiefs known as ‘feudi della Chiesa d’Asti’ interfered with Savoyard control of the dioceses

75 See D. Frigo, ‘Politica estera e diplomazia: figure, problemi e apparati’, in Storia degli antichi stati italiani, ed. G. Greco and M. Rosa (Rome/Bari, 1996), 117–61. 76 ASTO, Corte, MPRE, M.I., Cat. II, Vicariato imperiale, m. 1, fasc. 13, ‘Parere’, p. 36. The fiefs were: Montafia, Cisterna, Tigliole, Cortanze, Refrancore, Quattordio, Villa San Secondo, Corsione, Cunico, Castagnole, Rocchetta, Grana, Rocca d’Arazzo, Frinco and Camerano. 77 Ibid., pp. 54–7: Peirani was speaking about Villa, Corsione, Cunico, Castagnole, Masio, Rocchetta, Castiglione Tinella, and those fiefs that ‘si pretendono dipendenti dall’Impero’ like Frinco, Camerano, Vinchio, Belvedere and Mombercelli. 78 Ibid., pp. 64–9. A similar thesis in ‘Memoria istorica del vicariato imperiale . . . anche in riflesso a feudi ecclesiastici del Piemonte del conte Gubernatis’, ibid., fasc. 17 (1710). 79 A model is Crown, Church and Estates. Central European Politics in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. R.J.W. Evans and T.V. Thomas (Basingstoke, 1991). 80 There were pontifical fiefs in Lombardy too: see Cavallera, ‘Les fiefs impériaux’, 187. 81 R. Quazza, La contea di Masserano e Filiberto Ferrero-Fieschi (Biella, 1908), and id., Un feudo pontificio in Piemonte (Pavia, 1910); V. Barale, Il principato di Masserano e il marchesato di Crevacuore (Biella, 1966). the imperial system in early modern northern italy 233 of Asti and Alba.82 It is true that the dukes of Savoy, above all in the sixteenth century, aimed for pontifical consent regarding the rights of the vicariate.83 But it is also true that this ecclesiastical feudality was one of the causes of the notorious Piedmontese jurisdictional litigiousness.84 There is another underestimated and neglected factor: it was expensive to be an imperial vicar. Lengthy trips of ambassadors to Vienna, chancellery work and the production and copying of documents, presents to the emperor and his court, and, last but not least, war and loyalty required large investments. Fiscal matters became vitally important at the beginning of the seventeenth century, but also during the Thirty Years War, in the 1680s (for the relief of Vienna in 1683), and then for the war of the League of Augsburg until the peace of Utrecht. The oscillation between honour and duty still deserves our attention.85 It will be useful to pursue comparative studies as well. Is it possible to construct a kind of model of northern Italian imperial fiefs (Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardia, Emilia) and to compare this model with central and southern Italian cases?86 There surely are some common features to be found. To conclude, let me present a preliminary list of them. a. Chronological parallels in their development. Most of the imperial fiefs evolved during the Middle Ages and enhanced their power from the beginning of the sixteenth century, in the reign of Charles V and during the Italian wars.

82 The problem is introduced in T. Mörschel, Buona amicitia? Die Römisch-Savoyischen Beziehungen unter Paul V., 1605–21. Studien zur frühneuzeitlichen Mikropolitik in Italien (Mainz, 2002), 358–72. 83 See for example ASTO, Corte, MPRE, M.I., Cat. I, Investiture, m. 1, fasc. 10, 12 Dec. 1572, ‘Copia della bolla di papa Gregorio XIII a favore del duca di Emanuele Filiberto di confermazione del vicariato imperiale’. 84 G. Symcox, ‘L’età di Vittorio Amedeo II’, in Merlin et al., Piemonte sabaudo, 271–439, at 416–25; G. Ricuperati, ‘Il Settecento’, ibid., 441–834, at 484–503; id., La scrittura di un ministro. La Relazione sulle negoziazioni con la corte di Roma di Carlo Francesco Vincenzo Ferrero, marchese d’Ormea’, in Nobiltà e Stato in Piemonte. I Ferrero d’Ormea, ed. A. Mer- lotti (Turin, 2003), 207–29. 85 See now J.P. Niederkorn, ‘Reichsitalien als Finanzquelle des Kaiserhofs. Subsidien und Kontributionen, 16.–17. Jahrhundert’, in L’Impero e l’Italia . . ., 67–84, and C. Storrs, ‘Imperial Authority and the Levy of Contributions in Reichsitalien in the Nine Year War, 1690–6’, ibid., 241–73. 86 See, for instance, R. Pilati, ‘I feudi Gonzagheschi nel Regno di Napoli’, in Vespasiano Gonzaga, 327–55, about Vespasiano’s fiefs of Traetto and Fondi; and A. Villone, ‘Privilegi giurisdizionali e dominio feudale. Lo stato dei Doria d’Angri nella seconda metà del secolo XVII’, in Terre e feudi del Mezzogiorno nell’età moderna, ed. G. Galasso and C. Russo (2 vols, Naples, 1980), i. 5–60. 234 blythe alice raviola b. Political utility. The Empire, Spain and France benefited from the survival of the imperial fiefs, despite the pressure of their neighbours (the duchy of Savoy, Genoa, the state of Milan, the duchy of Mantua). This utility also worked in the struggles between Italian princes: the grand dukes of Tuscany, for instance, had a tolerant attitude towards the fiefs of Malaspina and Carpegna because they created a buffer zone between their dominions and the papacy.87 c. Diplomatic skills. Thanks to elaborate wedding policies most of the imperial vassals (the Gonzagas, Del Carrettos, Dorias, Malaspinas, Scarampis) were able to create personal bonds with Vienna and knew, even if devoted to the imperial cause, how to voice their opinion in moments of crisis. This happened at the end of the sixteenth century, in the middle of the seventeenth century, and in the first half of the eighteenth century, concurrently with the periods of most evident exercise of the imperial authority in Italy. It would be interesting to investigate if Italian imperial feudatories planned to form alliances (‘aderenza’), especially during the war of the Spanish Succession.88 It would also be interesting to analyse their employment of political language. By producing documents to legitimize their privileges historically, many of them portrayed their family traditions and thereby wrote a collateral history of Italian states.89 d. Economic potential. The imperial fiefs were usually located in strategically important areas: along commercial routes (Cocconato, Langhe, Monferrato, Malaspina), near to the sea (Finale), near to a lake (Macca- gno, on Lago Maggiore, close to the border of the duchy of Savoy),90 or near to a river. Their overlords used these crucial positions to promote trade and markets (and also smuggling) and to impose taxes. They also used to enjoy mining rights and the right to coin money.91

87 See R. Barotti, ‘Vivere la frontiera in Lunigiana: cominità, feudi, granduchi’, in Fron- tiere di terra e frontiere di mare: il caso della Toscana, ed. E. Fasano Guarini, in the press, and T. di Carpegna Falconieri, ‘I feudi imperiali fra Toscana e Stato pontificio’, in I feudi imperiali in Italia. 88 Not only in Langhe’s fiefs, but also in Lombardy there were new Ghibelline voices, saluting the accession of Charles VI as a positive step after the long Spanish government: see Cavallera, ‘Les fiefs impériaux’, 203, and C. Capra, ‘Il Settecento’, in Sella and Capra, Il ducato di Milano, 157–62, who openly speaks of a ‘Ghibelline renaissance’. 89 Torre, ‘Del Carretto, Girolamo Maria’. 90 M. Cavallera, ‘Enclaves e confini. Maccagno Imperiale nella politica e nell’economia milanese’, in I feudi imperiali in Italia. 91 Mariani, ‘Desana-Mirandola’, 6; Sisto, I feudi imperiali, 138–9; Cavallera, ‘Les fiefs impériaux’, 189. the imperial system in early modern northern italy 235 e. Patterns of inheritance. Most of the Italian imperial dynasties were divided into many branches and they rarely used the principle of primogeniture to pass on their heritage. This is particularly valid for the time until the end of the seventeenth century and for a small number of imperial fiefs, like Langhe and Monferrato or the Doria state. It could be an advantage: the same family stayed in power for a long time and could renew its loyalty to the emperor century after century. But there were also drawbacks resulting from frequent lawsuits beetween relatives. f. Inner tensions. In some imperial fiefs local riots took place. In every case where a rebellion took place it hastened the end of the political autonomy of those territories. In 1529 Riccardo of Desana, known as ‘the cruel’, was killed by his subjects.92 Some years later some of the counts of the marquisate chose to become Sabaudian vassals. In 1558 people from Finale—with Genoa’s help—sent away Marquis Alfonso II, who was accused of being violent and greedy. It was the beginning of the end.93 On 2 July 1624 the young prince of Masserano and Crevacuore, Carlo Ferrero Fieschi, had to escape from his castle to seek shelter in Milan to save himself from a fierce crowd.94 In Castiglione delle Stiv- iere a revolt against the new line of the Gonzaga of Solferino and their fiscal policy started in 1691.95 g. Similar extinction process. Even if at different times, most of the imperial fiefs disappeared in the eighteenth century for two reasons: the fuller territorial development of the Italian states and the stronger presence of the Empire in Italy. New political interlocutors, like Rinaldo d’Este, duke of Modena, who bought the duchy of Mirandola and the marquisate of Concordia (1710),96 and incorporated Novellara (1737), stepped onto the scene and openly supported Vienna and Milan. The imperial fiefs usually came to an end because of the death of the dynasty’s last heir or because they were confiscated by the Aulic Council after endless lawsuits.

92 Manno, Il patriziato subalpino, pp. xxvi, 174. 93 See Edelmayer, Maximilian II; G. Nuti, ‘Del Carretto, Alfonso’, DBI, 36 (Rome, 1988), 385–7; E. Marengo, Alfonso II del Carretto marchese di Finale e la Repubblica di Genova (Genuv, 1915, the rhetorical G.A. Silla, Storia del Finale (2 vols, Savona, 1921, repr. 1964), and M. Gasparini, ‘Il marchesato conteso’, in Piccoli principati liguri. Oneglia, Finale, Monaco. 1400–1795 (Milano, 2002), 83–133. 94 Barale, Il Principato di Masserano, i. 299–304, ii. 307–12. 95 Cremonini, ‘La rivolta di Castiglione’ . . . 96 L. Marini, ‘Lo stato estense’, in Marini et al., I ducati padani, 112–16. 236 blythe alice raviola h. Geographical position. The imperial fiefs were, as mentioned above, strategically well located. But looking at their actual position within the Italian penisula, they were located on the margins, usually at the edge of larger states. They occupied the boundary zones that connected two regional dominions and came to be opened up by commercial roads. i. Importance of the Po basin. Historians and contemporary scholars underlined97 how important the control of water and waterways within their territories was for states, duchies and fiefs. Traffic on the Po and its tributary streams was frequent and well organized, even if borders and customs hindered traffic. The same bounderies were often marked by rivers and watercourses had a large importance in defining, separating and protecting the lesser imperial fiefs too; that is particularly true for the Tortonese and Ligurian ones.98 My research on this main Italian river and its political and diplomatic use in the early modern period reveals that it was a supra-regional communication route, essential, for instance, for the salt trade from Venice to Turin.99 We also know that many imperial vassals (like the Scarampi-Crivelli) were specialized in the management of fluvial harbours in their fiefs. Studying this aspect in relation to the economic system of the northern Italian imperial fiefs could reveal more about these peculiar formations and their long survival.

97 Davolio, Memorie storiche, 5–7; Mozzarelli, ‘Castiglione e i Gonzaga’, and id., ‘Istituzi- one e declino d’un microcosmo principesco e cittadino. Note sul ducato di Sabbioneta tra XVI e XVIII secolo’, in Vespasiano Gonzaga, 241–57. 98 Sisto, I feudi imperiali, 6, 35, 41, and Grendi, ‘La pratica dei confini’. 99 B.A. Raviola, ‘La strada liquida. Costruire un libro sul Po in età moderna’, in Rivista storica italiana, 118 (2006), 1041–78. Section four

Neighbours

The Impact of War: The Holy Roman Empire and Poland-Lithuania, c. 1600–1806

Robert Frost

Study of the connection between war, state and society in the Holy Roman Empire has long been bedevilled by the great problems of categorization which so exercised Pufendorf three centuries ago. Despite the fact that many historians have shared Pufendorf’s concerns about the difficulties of fitting the Empire into the normal categories of political analysis, it has regularly been held up for comparison against a model of state-building in which France and England are seen to be paradigmatic. Thus modernity is measured against the emergence of John Brewer’s fiscal-military state, with an increasingly effective centralized administration, the efficient mobilization of resources, both human and financial, the development of a permanent military establishment, and the waging of new kinds of warfare in which only the state could deploy resources on a sufficient scale, afford the ever more sophisticated weaponry required for the effective waging of war, and construct the new navies and artillery fortifications which were required. In recent years, historians have questioned the overly simplistic view of the supposedly absolute states of early modern Europe, pointing out that they were far from the rational, efficient coercive machines as which they had traditionally been presented; neverthless, even critics of the model accept, on the whole, that crucial changes in the relationship between war, state and society did take place, if the emphasis is now placed more on the social compromises rulers had to make to achieve their ends. In the words of Jan Glete: The state developed from an arena for political interaction and a source of legitimacy for socio-economic forces into an articulated and centralised organisation with both an apparatus for resource extraction and a capability to use armed force independently of the local power-structures in society. This transformation was the result of innovative and entrepreneurial activities by rulers, elites and men with ambitions to join the elite. The fiscal- military states were not independent of surrounding societies, but they had become new and coherent power-structures of their own with resources controlled by central power-holders.1

1 Jan Glete, War and the State in Early Modern Europe. Spain, the Dutch Republic and Sweden as Fiscal-Military States, 1500–1600 (London/New York, 2002), 2. 240 robert frost

These new fiscal-military states were not ‘inherently oppressive’ institutions according to Glete; neither were they simple reconfigurations of the medieval system of cooperation between rulers and elites, but a complex organization, ‘a new type of social system with a dynamic and logic of its own, and with a remarkable potential for growth’.2 Yet with regard to the Holy Roman Empire this new model does not help us much. However the fiscal-military state emerged, the comparison of the Reich with England/Britain, France or Sweden, or even with states such as Spain, which lost out in the international rat race in the longer run, is highly problematic, since the Empire was not in quite the same sense a state, though it possessed many of the relevant mechanisms and institutions. Whatever the taxonomic problems, if direct comparisons are made of the capacity to wage war between the Reich and other Euro- pean states, as, for example in Hans Schmidt’s examination of the military systems of the Empire and France, it inevitably comes off badly.3 Thus Schmidt finds that the Reich, from the point of view of military administration, was chaotic: In contrast to France, which presented, at least under Louis XIV, the picture of an effective and efficient military administration and in which one can recognise a considered will driving centralisation and the enhancing of fighting power, Germany presents a completely confused picture.4 Indeed Schmidt goes on to wonder whether one can talk about a military administration of the Reich at all.5 Even if Parrott and Rowlands have posed fundamental questions about the efficiency and modernity of the seventeenth-century French military system, it still seems to be in a different league to the Reich.6 Historians of early modern German military development, however, have traditionally had no need to concern themselves overmuch with the Reich, because of the development within it of the Machtstaat at the level of the territorial state. The rise of Brandenburg-Prussia, the development

2 Ibid. 3 Hans Schmidt, ‘Militärverwaltung in Deutschland und Frankreich im 17. und 18. Jahr- hundert’, in Krieg und Frieden. Militär und Gesellschaft in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Bernhard R. Kroener and Ralf Proeve (Paderborn, 1996), 25–57. 4 Schmidt, ‘Militärverwaltung in Deutschland und Frankreich’, 37. 5 Ibid. 6 David Parrott, Richelieu’s Army. War, Government and Society in France, 1624–42 (Oxford, 2001); Guy Rowlands, The Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV (Cam- bridge, 2002). the empire and poland-lithuania, c. 1600–1806 241 of the Habsburg army from the 1630s and the construction of fiscal- military states of various sizes and varying degrees of sophistication, from Hessen-Kassel to Saxony, meant that Germany could be integrated into the broader picture of state development within Europe without recourse to the imperial dimension, while the rapid development of the Prussian army in particular from the Great Elector to Frederick II ensured that Ger- man military development could be fitted neatly into the general Euro- pean pattern. The view that, especially after 1648, the Reich was an historical anachronism which acted as a brake on German development has long been challenged, as numerous essays in this volume demonstrate. The cold winds of revisionism, however, have barely begun to blow through studies of the Reich’s military system. An invigorating new view has been put forward by Peter Wilson, who has recently suggested a new framework for writing the military history of the Reich, arguing powerfully that we should not castigate it as a failed fiscal-military state, but should see it as: a system of collective security and internal conflict and resolution that allowed a rich variety of political traditions to coexist relatively harmoni- ously. This system preserved the Reich against formidable attacks without making it a danger to the security of its neighbours. In contrast to the political culture of later German states, that of the Reich was inherently defensive, preferring peace to war in both domestic politics and external relations.7 If, as Wilson suggests, the Reich was a polity that was not only very different from Hintze’s Machtstaat, but which cannot really be measured against it, then it might be illuminating to compare it not with its western and northern neighbours, who can all in one way or another be fitted into the paradigm of the Machtstaat, whether in its Hintzean form, or in the modified version suggested by Glete, but with its eastern neighbour, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. There is much about the history of both states in the early modern period which invites such a comparison. Both were large, politically decentralized elective monarchies. In each, the relationship between crown and state was complicated by dynastic factors and the external interests of the monarch: in the Reich the Habsburgs were an international dynasty with, after the defeat of the Bohemian rebels and the consequent assertion of Habsburg authority in the patrimonial lands during the 1620s, a growing power-base beyond the borders of the Reich, while in the Commonwealth,

7 Peter Wilson, German Armies. War and German Politics, 1648–1806 (London, 1998), 1. 242 robert frost a series of foreign princes was elected after the constitutional revolution of 1569–72. The first two elective monarchs were French and Transyl- vanian, while under the Vasa dynasty between 1587 and 1668, the Com- monwealth’s foreign policy was bedevilled by the residual Vasa claim to the Swedish throne, only abandoned in 1660. Between 1669 and 1697, the Commonwealth was ruled by native kings drawn from the high nobility, but the election of Augustus II in 1697 once more brought to the throne a foreign dynasty with extensive external interests and, most significantly in this context, an army that was not subject to control by the Common- wealth’s institutions. Finally, both the Reich and the Commonwealth were consensual systems, with powerful limitations placed on the judicial and political powers of the monarchy by a central parliamentary body: the Reichstag in the Empire and the sejm in Poland-Lithuania, local estates bodies (the sejmik and the Landtag or Kreistag), and complex legal systems based on a mixture of customary, statute and Roman law. In terms of the history of war and international relations in the early modern period, there is much that invites a comparative approach, not least the fact that both states disappeared from the map of Europe in the two decades after the French Revolution: the Commonwealth in 1795; the Reich a mere eleven years later. In the seventeenth century both polities experienced highly damaging and long-running wars fought on their own soil, started by internal rebellions: the Thirty Years War in the Reich, and the twenty-year crisis in the Commonwealth sparked off by the great Cossack revolt of 1648, which drew it into the Thirteen Years War with Muscovy (1654–67) and the Second Northern War (1655–60). In both cases these conflicts caused immense internal damage and were followed in the later seventeenth century by a cycle of wars against the Ottoman Empire. Both the Reich and the Commonwealth became once again after 1660 the battleground for a number of European powers: in the Reich, during the wars of Louis XIV and the great cycle of conflicts of the eighteenth century; in the Commonwealth during the Great Northern War (1700–21) and the War of the Polish Succession (1733–5). Finally, both had to struggle at the institutional level with the rapidly changing demands of mobilization for war in the age of the fiscal-military state. Much could be said about the socio-economic impact of war in such a comparison, but that is not the aim of this chapter, since hard work remains to be done before such a comparison might become feasible. For if the historiography on this matter with regard to the Reich has benefited greatly from the debate sparked off after 1945 by the challenge to what R.R. Ergang called the ‘myth of the all-destructive fury’ of the Thirty the empire and poland-lithuania, c. 1600–1806 243

Years War mounted by a number of Anglo-American historians including Ergang himself, S.H. Steinberg, T.K. Rabb and Gerhard Benecke, no similar debate has taken place in Polish historiography, where the destructive nature of warfare has been taken as self-evident, and the sources have not been subjected to the same rigorous and critical scrutiny which Benecke, in his work on Lippe, suggested is necessary. Thus even if historians of the Reich have, thanks to years of detailed local studies, come to the conclusion that the estimates for population loss made by Günther Franz, however dubious their provenance, are actually surprisingly accurate, and that the destructive fury of the Thirty Years war was in many respects no myth, it will be years before Polish historians are able to produce data which would enable such a comparison to be made.8 * Whatever the social impact of war, its political impact on the Common- wealth and the Reich between the outbreak of the Thirty Years War and the end of the eighteenth century was sustained and substantial. Both polities had to contend with the rapidly-developing fiscal-military states which surrounded them and work out their own solutions to the problems of military organization. I would like to suggest that a comparison of the Reich with the Commonwealth very much bears out Wilson’s contention that after 1648 the Holy Roman Empire developed a relatively successful system of collective security, and that the problems it experienced after 1740 following what amounted to a direct attack on that system by Fred- erick II of Prussia should not disguise its continued success and, above all,

8 See R.R. Ergang, The myth of the All-destructive Fury of the Thirty Years War (Pocono Pines, Pa, 1956); T.K. Rabb, ‘The Effects of the Thirty Years War on the German Economy’, Journal of Modern History, 34 (1962), 40–51; Gerhard Benecke, ‘The Problem of Death and Destruction in Germany during the Thirty Years War: New Evidence from the Middle Weser Front’, European Studies Review, 2 (1972), 239–53; id., Society and Politics in Germany, 1500–1750 (Toronto, 1974), esp. ch. 9; Günther Franz, Der Dreißigjährige Krieg und das deutsche Volk (3rd edn, Stuttgart, 1961). For an introduction to revisionist scholarship, see John C. Theibault, ‘The Rhetoric of Death and Destruction in the Thirty Years War’ Jour- nal of Social History, 27 (1993), 271–90, and id., ‘The Demography of the Thirty Years War Revisited: Günther Franz and his Critics’, German History 15 (1997), 1–21. There is surprisingly little material devoted to the matter in Polish. The standard accounts of the impact of the Second Northern War are a series of local studies in Kazimierz Lepszy et al. (ed.), Polska w okresie drugiej wojny północnej, vol. 2 (Warsaw, 1957), but the principal source for many of the studies is the series of audits of royal estates carried out in the early 1660s. No serious critical attention is given to the reliability of the source, or to the issue of whether the experience of royal estates is typical of that of the Commonwealth as a whole. See the comments in Jolanta Choińska-Mika, Między społeczeństwem szlacheckim a władzą. Prob- lemy komunikacji lokalne–władza w epoce Jana Kazimierza (Warsaw, 2002), 22–3. 244 robert frost its remarkable flexibility and ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. The extent of this success perhaps only becomes apparent when it is compared to the failure of the Commonwealth to respond adequately to the military challenges of the age until it was too late. The traditional, negative view of the Reich tended to set the supposed modernizing development of the military systems of the princes against what was seen as the backwardness of the Empire; thus the rise of the princely Machtstaat tolled the death knell for the crumbling, inefficient polity that the Reich was presumed to be. Yet the development of the new military systems of the princes, including that of the Habsburgs, cannot be divorced from the development of the Reich itself. For, as Wilson points out, Prussia, like other major principalities which developed military systems of the new type after 1648, had ‘benefited from its membership of the Reich, which helped protect its scattered possessions from external attack’.9 Thus it was the collective security system of the Reich, of which the principalities, including Brandenburg-Prussia, were an intrinsic part after the 1635 Peace of Prague, which provided the framework of security that was a necessary condition for the burgeoning of the military capacity of those same principalities, without which they would have been cruelly exposed to the ravages of internal and external enemies. This indeed had been the painful experience of Brandenburg in the 1630s, when George William was at the mercy of Swedish military power; despite the subsequent glorification of his son, Frederick William, the Great Elector himself was just as much exposed in 1655 at the start of the Second Northern War, and again in 1658 after the Peace of Roskilde, when he was crucially dependent upon the military support of Leopold I.10 The Peace of Prague provided the collective security which enabled the Reich to resist the Swedes and their German and French allies, and which solved for the duration of the war many, if by no means all, of the pressing problems facing a largely decentralized political structure in which consensual estates institutions were very close to the citizen body and in an excellent position to frustrate the aims of central power, both at the princely and particularly at the imperial level. In the 1620s, the princes of the Reich had caught a glimpse of an alternative system, in which the stunning victories of the Habsburgs in their patrimonial lands, and the

9 Wilson, German Armies, 245. 10 See E. Opitz, Oesterreich und Brandenburg im schwedisch-polnischen Krieg, 1655–60. Vorbereitung und Durchführung der Feldzüge nach Dänemark und Pommern (Boppard-am- Rhein, 1969). the empire and poland-lithuania, c. 1600–1806 245 subsequent consolidation of their power base had opened the way to the construction of an army outwith the direct control of the Reichstag and the other traditional imperial institutions. Wallenstein’s spectacular rampage through central and northern Germany after 1625 and the unilateral decisions of Ferdinand II on a number of key political issues, culminating in the 1629 Edict of Restitution, demonstrated all too starkly the danger that the Habsburgs, now so clearly the most powerful and substantial princes in the Reich, might shake off the shackles of the consensual system which had grown up over centuries. Yet in the context of the Thirty Years War, especially as it became an international conflict in the years after Gustav Adolf’s landing at Peene- münde in 1630, it would have been dangerous to constrain too extensively the power of the Habsburgs: the rights of the imperial estates had to be protected from central power, but not at the expense of the coherence of the system of collective security. The Peace of Prague succeeded trium- phantly in this aim. By allowing a substantial imperial army it ensured that the settlement was acceptable to the emperor, yet by establishing a system whereby this army was brought effectively under the control of the imperial circles and civilian commissioners it secured a degree of control which would be acceptable to the citizen body. As Hubert Salm has demonstrated, the structures set in place by the Peace of Prague ensured that despite the enormous burden on society that the army undoubtedly represented, it could be maintained at a level adequate for the needs of defence for long periods. Moreover this was achieved in large part through the traditional institutions of the Reich: the territorial princes, the substantial majority of whom flocked back to support the emperor after 1635, and the circles. Even if the system was struggling to extract sufficient resources to sustain it by the late 1640s, it had succeeded in defending the Empire and bringing it to the edge of an acceptable peace settlement; perhaps more significantly, it had shown how the army could become part of the society it was meant to defend, and not an alien force subject to the will of an absolute monarch.11 Not only was the imperial army subjected to civilian control by the Peace of Prague at the regional level of the circles, it was also checked by the contingents of the leading princes, Saxony, Bavaria, and later Brandenburg. The system inaugurated at Prague lapsed in 1648, and did

11 Hubert Salm, Armeefinanzierung im Dreißigjährigen Krieg. Der Niederrheinisch- Westfälische Reichskreis, 1635–50 (Münster, 1990), 164–76. 246 robert frost not therefore create any imperial standing army; moreover, as the legal basis for the separate armies of the major German princes, the treaty has sometimes been seen as a fundamental link in the chain of causes which brought down the Reich by effectively opening the door to the sort of military expansion inaugurated by the Great Elector, fostered by Frederick Wilhelm I and brought to fruition by Frederick II. The consequences of the right granted under the treaty to princes to maintain armies of their own under the polite fiction that these were contingents of the imperial army was, so it is suggested, exacerbated by the Peace of Westphalia, which granted princes the right to make alliances with external powers, albeit with the ineffective rider that these alliances should not be directed against the interests of the Empire. Yet by harnessing the self-interest of the princes, the Reich took a calculated risk: given the prestige attached to the name of the emperor and the effective acceptance of the limitations on imperial power by emperors after the 1620s, it was to be hoped that the benefits to be gained by the Reich from the existence of powerful, trained, professional princely armies in time of war would outweigh the danger of over-ambitious princes seeking to use these forces against the Reich’s interests. It was, in many ways, an acceptable risk. While much attention is devoted to the Prussian army which, by 1740, was a substantial force on a European scale, the constraints on German princes meant that few of these forces were powerful enough to stand on their own, as the Wettins found out only too clearly during the Great Northern War. It is true that, as Schmidt asserts, the military structures of the Reich lacked the coherence and central sense of purpose that was increasingly evident in the developing military-fiscal states of late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. There was, as he points out, no standing army, despite the attempt in 1681 to create one of 40,000, with the intention of expanding it to 120,000.12 Judged against the new standing armies of the later seventeenth century, this force was no doubt a failure: as Schmidt points out, the institutions and mechanisms meant to run this force proved less than efficient; the Reichsoperationskasse which was meant to finance its campaigns saw little of the money that was supposed to flow into it, and there was no ‘Reichskriegsrat’ to coordinate the force.13 Yet the reforms of 1681 were not designed to produce a standing army of the sort masterminded in France by le Tellier and Louvois. They were

12 Schmidt, ‘Militärverwaltung in Frankreich und Deutschland’, 37. 13 Ibid. the empire and poland-lithuania, c. 1600–1806 247 deliberately based on the military traditions of the Reich, in particular on the circles, running back through 1635 to 1555 and beyond. The troops provided an imperial alternative to the burgeoning standing armies of the Hohenzollerns, Wittelsbachs or Wettins; as Wilson argues, it was not an attempt to create a standing army, but a reform of the existing system of mobilization, above all for the smaller territories which had real reason to suspect their more powerful neighbours.14 While the system certainly could not raise forces anywhere near as large as those of a France or a Russia, it was not supposed to: the circle contingents were merely part of a much wider system for imperial defence, serving alongside the forces of the emperor and the greater princes. After 1681, the system could consistently be relied on to produce what it was supposed to in time of need.15 Thus in many ways, the possibility of the emergence of a Frederick II was a price worth paying for a system of collective security which enabled the Reich to survive a long series of wars between 1655 and 1721, several of which could have threatened its very existence, but none of which came close to having the impact of the Thirty Years War. And if Frederick II acted alone in 1740, even he was swiftly forced to have recourse to foreign alliances to sustain his position thereafter. While some German princes were perpared to support him in the Silesian wars of the 1740s, most notably Saxony, the striking feature of the military system of the Reich after 1648 is the consistent ability of the emperor, in a range of conflicts, to mobilize the bulk of the Reich’s forces in support of his military operations. The circles may only have supplied 41,300 of the troops fighting the French and the Turks in 1695, but the contingents of the princes and the emperor, added to German auxiliary troops fighting in Flanders and Hun- gary, meant that the Empire supplied 254,300 of the 436,500 men deployed, a significant figure, and one which was not so wildly out of line with the size of armies raised by the French or Russian states.16 Recent scholarship has also demonstrated that the system was robust enough to acquit itself reasonably well against the very new challenge it faced during the French Revolutionary Wars: contrary to popular myth, the Reich’s armies were not outnumbered by the French, nor were the soldiers who formed them the unmotivated pawns prone to high rates of desertion as which they are often depicted. There were many factors in the collapse of the Old

14 Wilson, German Armies, 66. 15 See ibid., table 3.5 (p. 94) for the contingents raised during the Turkish War between 1689 and 1697. 16 Ibid., table 3.3 (p. 92). 248 robert frost

Reich in 1806, not least the vastly changed circumstances produced by the Austro-Prussian rivalry and the change in the position of both these powers as a consequence to their substantial territorial acquisitions from the partitions of Poland-Lithuania. While the Reich’s military system certainly had difficulties in coping with the revolutionary armies, it was politics more than military factors which brought about the collapse.17 * Judged on its own terms, therefore, the Reich was actually rather effective in meeting the military challenges it faced in the seventeenth century, and it developed as a consequence of the Thirty Years War a strikingly robust system of collective security. As an increasing number of impressive studies have shown, the eighteenth-century Reich—and not just the Prussia of Frederick William I or Frederick II—was a highly militarized society.18 Its military system was certainly much more robust than that of Poland- Lithuania, which so manifestly failed to meet the military challenges it faced after 1648. That failure, however, was not the result of backwardness, or the supposedly chaotic and anarchic character of the Poles. For, as I have argued elsewhere, the Commonwealth’s decentralized political system proved eminently capable in the second half of the sixteenth century of meeting the challenge of modern warfare. Between 1558 and 1634 it fought continuously for over 50 out of 72 years, and that is not counting various Cossack rebellions, the continuous threat of raids from the Crimean Tatars and some dubious freelance adventures in Moldavia and Wallachia. In this period, Polish armies captured Stockholm (1598) and Moscow (1610), which they held for two years longer than Napoleon managed; they laid siege to it again in 1617–18, forcing the Muscovites to make substantial concessions at the peace of Deulino, which included the cession of Smolensk, Chernihov and Seversk. Crushing defeats were inflicted on the Swedes at Kircholm (1605) and on a combined Swedish-Muscovite army at Klushino (1610), while a huge Ottoman army was repulsed at Khotyn in 1621. The Commonwealth’s decentralized, consensual political system proved itself capable of raising considerable sums of money and substantial

17 Ibid., 331–40. 18 See, for example, Ralf Proeve, Stehendes Heer und städtische Gesellschaft im 18. Jahr- hundert. Göttingen und seine Militärbevölkerung, 1713–56 (Munich, 1995), and Stefan Kroll, Soldaten im 18. Jahrhundert zwischen Friedensalltag und Kriegserfahrung. Lebenswelten und Kultur in der kursächsischen Armee, 1728–96 (Paderborn, 2006). the empire and poland-lithuania, c. 1600–1806 249 armies: Stefan Batory mobilized over 50,000 men in the summer of 1579 at the start of his three great campaigns against Ivan the Terrible, which saw the recapture of Polock, the capture of Ushviat and Velizh, and the five-month siege of Pskov in 1581–2 that forced Ivan to make a humiliat- ing peace at Iam Zapolskii. Even more men were mobilized for the Kho- tyn campaign of 1621, especially if up to 40,000 Zaporozhian Cossacks are taken into consideration. Gustav Adolf was beaten off and outmanoeu- vred in Royal Prussia in 1626–9; the Muscovites were comprehensively defeated in 1634 outside the walls of Smolensk at the same time that a Turkish invasion was repulsed in the Ukraine. The sejm agreed the funds to finance it: 12,000,000 złoties between 1626 and 1629 to repel Gustav Adolf, over 1 million pounds sterling at contemporary rates. The Com- monwealth’s performance was rather more impressive than that of Stuart Britain, or of anybody else who faced Gustav Adolf in his prime.19 In understanding how these feats were achieved, we need to throw aside assumptions, predicated on what happened subsequently, which suggest that only a centralized Machtstaat backed by a large standing army could be efficient. Much is often made of the relatively small size of the Commonwealth’s armies. While this was certainly a major problem by 1717, when the Silent Sejm under the watchful gaze of Peter I’s troops limited the army to a paper strength of 24,000 men, it was not so apparent in the early seventeenth century. The assumption, moreover, that military efficiency can only be measured in terms of the size of a standing army is one which should be called into question. While Poland-Lithuania certainly maintained very few permanent troops—some 3–4,000 in the quarter army, including only 1,000 infantry, to patrol the southeastern borders, a small royal guard and the registered Zaporozhian Cossacks, cut to 6,000 men after 1637—the Commonwealth’s military capacity was not limited to these permanent troops. It was crucially dependent on a number of ways of raising additional troops quickly, troops, moreover, who often had considerable military experience. For if, as in the Reich, the military system remained decentralized, it drew on a considerable reservoir of such men. Whereas the Cossack register was limited in size, to keep the state’s outgoings low, there was a substantial number of unregistered Cossacks (as 1648 was to show) who could fight, and fight well; their experience of both land and naval warfare

19 Robert I. Frost, The Northern Wars. War, State, and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558–1721 (Harlow, 2000), 150–1. 250 robert frost in the constant campaigns against the Ottoman lands of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was hard won. Although the quarter army was indeed a permanent force, the nucleus of long-serving soldiers at its heart was relatively small. The normal pattern was for young noblemen to serve for one or two campaigning seasons as part of their education as citizens before they returned to civilian life. In time of need, however, they could mobilize swiftly and their military experience explains why Polish cavalry units could be raised so rapidly, and why they were so effective once raised. These men had served in a harsh theatre of war: even in time of peace they did not sit in barracks playing dice, but were likely to be chasing Tatars across the rolling Ukrainian steppe, not an occupation for the faint of heart. In time of need, this reservoir of experienced soldiers was drawn on by both local sejmiks and private recruiters, who were often, but not invariably, great magnates. Like the circle diets, local sejmiki could and did organize and pay for their own defence. In 1634, facing the prospect of a Turkish invasion, the grand chancellor of Lithuania, Albrycht Stanisław Radziwiłł reported that while he was in Volhynia, ‘so great a zeal for the conservation of liberty arose that . . . within six weeks money for . . . 400 hussars and 600 light cavalry for half a year was raised. Other districts, fired by fortunate jealousy and rivalry, tried to do the same.’20 The supposedly abject performance of such contingents during the rout at Pyliavtsi in 1648 has meant that they have not always enjoyed the best of reputations, but a recent study by Dariusz Kupisz demonstrates that they made a considerable contribution to Poland’s military successes before 1648.21 The same might be said of the so-called ‘private armies’. Textbook accounts of Polish history tend to use the existence of allegedly substantial private forces to contrast with what is taken to be the pitifully small ‘standing army’ to demonstrate how the Commonwealth was failing to meet the challenge of the military revolution: thus it is claimed that the great Ukrainian magnate Jarema Wiśniowiecki had a private army of 6,000 men, nearly twice the size of the quarter army. The term ‘private army’, however, is a misnomer. While it is true that a handful of the greatest magnates, rather like Highland chiefs, could occasionally muster forces of a couple of thousand in private squabbles and mounted the odd pitched

20 Albrycht Stanisław Radziwiłł, Memoriale rerum gestarum in Polonia, ed. Adam Przyboś and Roman Żelewski (5 vols, Wrocław, 1968–75), ii.30. 21 Dariusz Kupisz, Wojska powiatowe samorządów Małopolski i Rusi Czerwonej w latach 1572–1717 (Lublin, 2008). the empire and poland-lithuania, c. 1600–1806 251 battle, and while it is true that one or two maintained small forces of infantry to garrison their private towns, these private armies were not all that they seemed. The suggestion that they were something like the burgeoning armies of the territorial princes in the Reich—the great magnates of Lithuanian and the Ukraine are frequently referred to as ‘królewięta’ (kinglets)—is erroneous, for however wealthy these magnates were (and the Radziwiłłs, protected by the three entails agreed by the sejm in the 1580s were wealthy indeed), there is one crucial difference between them and the territorial princes of the Reich: they lacked the power to tax. This fact seriously limited the extent of the resources, and therefore the forces, they could mobilize, unless they could draw on those of the state. Historians have been too quick to accept impressionistic estimates of the numbers of these private forces and slow to investigate their basis. It is claimed that there were 60,000 private troops at the 1632 election of Władysław IV: 10,000 with Krzysztof II Radziwiłł, and 6,000 each with Stanisław Konopczyński and one of the Leszczyńskis. Similar numbers are claimed for the 1669 election of Michael Korybut Wiśniowiecki, with Bogusław and Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł bringing nearly 8,000 men, as did Krzysztof and Michał Kazimierz Pac, while Jan Sobieski and Dymitr Wiśniowiecki brought 4,000 each.22 Yet such figures are simply not cred- ible, and no magnate, however wealthy was capable of maintaining forces of anything like this size. Some, such as the Radziwiłł, could indeed call up substantial numbers of men for particular events such as a royal election, not least because, since the 1560s, the Radziwiłłs had issued large numbers of leases to poor Lithuanian nobles and boiars on terms which required them to turn out if required for war, suitably armed, or for sessions of the sejm.23 These men could be raised by magnates; indeed it was one way in which the Commonwealth tried to mobilize quickly for war, but no magnate was in a state to maintain or pay such forces unless they were swiftly placed on the Commonwealth’s payroll. Where muster rolls do exist, it is clear that the actual size of the permanent forces these men could raise was far less impressive. Stanisław Lubomirski, as castellan of Cracow the leading lay senator in the Commonwealth in the 1640s, maintained some 600 men which, with uniforms and arms, must have cost him

22 Krzysztof Dembski, ‘Wojska nadworna magnatów polskich w XVI i XVII wieku’, Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. A. Mickiewicza, Historia, 1 (1956), 83. 23 M. Siekierski, ‘Landed Wealth in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: The Economic Affairs of Prince Nicholas Christopher Radziwiłł, 1549–1616’ Acta Baltico-Slavica 20 (1989), 239–308, and 21 (1992), 195–300, at xxi.290. 252 robert frost something like 108,000 złoties per year, a colossal sum.24 Many of the supposedly ‘private’ troops at the royal elections of 1632 and 1669 were in all probability part of the regular army: Krzysztof II Radziwiłł and Stanisław Koniecpolski were respectively grand hetmans of Lithuania and Poland in 1632, while in 1669, Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł was Lithuanian grand hetman, Mikołaj Kazimierz Pac was Lithuanian field hetman, Jan Sobieski was Polish grand hetman and Dymitr Wiśniowiecki was Polish field hetman. In 1631, a year before the election to which he is supposed to have brought 10,000 men, Krzysztof II Radziwiłł’s infantry numbered a princely 59 men.25 It is claimed that the size of these ‘private armies’ grew rapidly in the eighteenth century,26 but wild estimates do not accord with reality. Hieronim Florian Radziwiłł, who decided to establish a private army on his return from his grand tour in 1735, was estimated to have maintained a force of 6–10,000 men; the documents reveal that at its height, he managed to raise 1,854 men, more than half of them irregular Cossacks; after his death in 1760, his ‘private army’ was reduced to 545 men by his heir, Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł.27 It would be more accurate to view these magnates as military entrepreneurs; drawing on their wealth and local prestige and, sometimes, on surviving remnants of the obligations of the petty Lithuanian service nobility, to raise contingents of troops which could, in the short term, be used for private ends, but could only be sustained for longer if they passed on to the state’s payroll. These were not private armies so much as military clienteles and, as Urszula Augustyniak’s close study of the military clientele of Krzysztof II Radziwiłł makes abundantly clear, the greatest military clienteles belonged to the hetmans,28 whose position and authority was dependent on the powers invested in them as the commanders of the army. Thus if Radziwiłł was barely able to muster 150 men in his

24 Władysław Czapliński and Józef Długosz, Życie codzienne magnaterii polskiej w XVII wieku (Warsaw, 1982), 56–7. 25 H. Wisner, ‘Wojsko litewskie 1 połowy XVII wieku’, Studia i Materiały do Historii Wojskowości, 19 (1973), 116. Radziwiłł’s infantry numbered 79 in 1621, 88 in 1625, 59 in 1631 and a mere 31 in 1634 after the end of the Smolensk campaign; his cavalry was about the same size: Urszula Augustyniak, W służbie hetmana i Rzeczypospolitej. Klientela wojskowa Krzysztofa Radziwiłła,1585–1640 (Warsaw, 2004), 31, 33. 26 Dembski, ‘Wojska nadworne’, 53. 27 M.J. Lech, ‘Milicje Radziwiłłów jako oręż feudałów w walce z ruchami chłopskimi na Białorusi i Litwie’, Rocznik Białostocki, 3 (1962), 35–6. 28 Poland and Lithuania each had a grand hetman and a field hetman. The grand hetman was the superior in status, but field hetmans often resisted the notion that they were subordinate to him. the empire and poland-lithuania, c. 1600–1806 253

permanent retinue, he estimated that in time of war he could raise 3,000 from his own estates.29 He could only do so, however, if they passed immediately on to the state’s budget. The fact that they could then indeed be used for private ends was well appreciated: at the 1632 election sejm, Krzysztof Radziwiłł reacted sharply to suggestions that some of the troops raised for the purposes of the state had been used for private ends.30 Thus the role of these privately-raised contingents was by no means always negative: in the absence of a powerful bureaucracy, the Common- wealth relied on the ability of large landowners to raise units, especially of cavalry, quickly in time of need. They were important for a military system which was rather well adapted to the defensive needs of the state which operated it. The Commonwealth could well face simultaneous invasions on two or three fronts thousands of kilometres apart. It is not clear how a standing army, either located centrally, or dispersed across 800,000 km2 would have been useful or effective. The key was the ability to raise troops quickly in time of need; up to 1648, on the whole, this was possible. * Yet if the Commonwealth’s military system proved more capable of resist- ing its enemies than it is often given credit for, at least until 1648, in comparison with the Reich it failed to adapt to the challenges it faced as its rivals developed ever-larger standing armies and enhanced military capacities. In the Reich the Peace of Prague and the reforms of 1681 adapted the traditional defensive structure, based on the circles, which, alongside the growing princely armies and the substantially enhanced military capacity of the emperor, facilitated the creation of a system of collective security robust enough to weather the Thirty Years War and prolonged bouts of warfare with Louis XIV and the Ottoman Empire, much of it fought on German soil. The first key difference lay in the outcome of the two rebellions which began the great periods of warfare in each state. In the Reich, the Bohe- mian Revolt gave the Austrian Habsburgs, admittedly assisted by their Spanish cousins as well as important princes in the Empire, the opportunity for a swift and devastating political victory, enabling them to secure the patrimonial lands as a power-base which allowed them to build an army virtually from scratch, albeit under its first commander, Wallenstein,

29 Augustyniak, W służbie hetmana i Rzeczypospolitej, 33. 30 Radziwiłł, Memoriale rerum gestarum in Polonia, i.88–9. 254 robert frost a force not entirely under Habsburg control. The Vasas, in contrast, were dependent on the Commonwealth’s small professional core army, a substantial portion of which was made up of registered Cossacks, most of whom promptly joined the rebels. When, in the summer of 1648, the drink-sodden and incompetent hetman Mikołaj Potocki unwisely divided the forces at his disposal, he saw both sections of the army overwhelmed at the battles of Zhovte Vody (29 April–16 May) and Korsun (26 May). It was what happened next that demonstrated the problems faced by the Commonwealth. The disastrous defeats had deprived it not only of the core of its professional army, but also of most of its infantry, since the 6,000 registered Cossacks were largely foot-soldiers. The capture of both Polish hetmans, Potocki and Marcin Kalinowski, by the Tatars at Korsun left the army leaderless. For political reasons, Grand Chancellor Jerzy Ossoliński masterminded the appointment of three incompetent leaders: Mikołaj Ostrogski and Dominik Zasławski, who had little military experience, and the 28-year-old Aleksander Koniecpolski, son of the great hetman Stanisław, who had repulsed the Swedes in the 1620s and the Turks in the 1630s. The army which creaked south, weighed down by ludicrous quantities of gold plate and silver goblets, was accompanied by over 30 political commissars (the only appropriate term) to control its actions. It was in large part composed of ‘private’ troops and of contingents raised by the sejmiki; the latter had decided on wildly varying rates of pay, which understandably led to bickering in the ranks. When rumours spread that the Tatar Horde had arrived, and before hardly a shot had been fired, the substantial army of some 30,000 men, simply turned tail and fled, abandoning its riches to an astonished Cossack army. ‘Within a few hours, a great and splendid army disintegrated all by itself, without a single enemy attack.’31 The disaster at Pyliavtsi epitomizes the problems faced by a system based on the articulation of various means of raising troops. Over the next twenty years, the Commonwealth did manage to perform much better, reforming its military structures in the early 1650s and raising by 1659 the largest professional force it had put into the field by that date, at a paper strength of nearly 60,000 men. Yet the outcome of the wars failed to resolve the problems faced by the system. There was no Peace of Prague. Instead, the royal court tried to force through extensive political reform, in seeking to achieve an election vivente rege, and failed to win the sort of

31 Mikhailo Hrushevsky, History of Ukraine-Rus’. Vol. 8: The Cossack Age, 1626–50, tr. Marta Olynyk (Toronto, 2002), 475. the empire and poland-lithuania, c. 1600–1806 255 limited victory experienced by the Habsburgs in their patrimonial lands in the 1620s, which gave them a crucial power-base without providing them with too much power on an imperial level and therefore keeping their power in proportion. Most crucially, the Commonwealth lacked the vital stratum of Reichsfürsten or the concept of Landeshoheit which enabled the Reich, after 1635 to develop an effective, or effective enough, system of common defence. The Polish-Lithuanian system, however, as it developed over the course of the seventeenth century, increasingly favoured the private political and financial interests of the hetmans rather than the state. If down to the mid- seventeenth century the wide powers afforded the hetman allowed a succession of excellent commanders, including Jan Tarnowski (Polish grand hetman 1527–59), Stanisław Żółkiewski (Polish field hetman 1588–1618; grand hetman 1618–20), Jan Karol Chodkiewicz (Lithuanian field hetman 1601–5; grand hetman 1605–21), Stanisław Koniecpolski (Polish field hetman 1618–32; grand hetman 1632–46), Stefan Czarniecki (Polish field hetman 1665), Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski (Polish field hetman 1657–64) and Jan Sobieski (Polish field hetman 1666–8; grand hetman 1668–70), to win a string of battles and campaigns, the inability of the king to dismiss a hetman—as with all offices in the Commonwealth, tenure was for life— and the wide powers of the system left the position open to abuse. Already by the mid-sixteenth century in Lithuania, it was not uncommon for great magnates to hold the offices of hetman and chancellor simultaneously; in Poland a baleful precedent was created by Jan Zamoyski who, promoted to grand chancellor and grand hetman by Stefan Batory, moved into opposition under Sigismund III in the 1590s. Krzysztof II Radziwiłł, grand hetman of Lithuania under Sigismund, was frozen out of political influence, largely on account of his Calvinism, and plotted to depose the king in the late 1620s. In the 1650s, John Casimir tried to keep the position of grand hetman vacant following the death of Janusz Kiszka in 1654 to avoid promoting Krzysztof’s son Janusz, made field hetman by Władysław IV in 1646, becoming grand hetman. When Radziwiłł was raised to the position, opposition was hardened by the king’s appointment of his bitter enemy Wincenty Korwin Gosiewski—who also held the key post of Lithuanian treasurer— to the post of field hetman; Radziwiłł openly schemed against the king and, in the crisis of 1655, went over to the Swedes, signing an agreement with them in August and then the so-called Union of Kiejdany, which purported to unite the grand duchy of Lithuania with Sweden, in October. Radziwiłł died in disgrace at the end of 1655, but if his career showed the limits of a hetman’s power, it became increasingly common—and by the eighteenth century the almost invariable norm—for hetmans to 256 robert frost become political opponents of the monarchy almost as soon as they were appointed. Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski, who had originally expressed his support for John Casimir’s plans for an election vivente rege, moved decisively into opposition in 1661 and, following his impeachment at the 1664 sejm, in which John Casimir successfully stripped him of his offices, led the second great rokosz (rebellion) of the seventeenth century, which effectively ended John Casimir’s ambitious reform plans. Jan Sobieski, appointed Polish grand hetman by John Casimir, moved into fierce and effective opposition when the latter’s abdication in 1668 was followed not by the election of the duke of Neuburg, the French-backed candidate for the throne, but by that of Michael Korybut Wiśniowiecki. When Sobieski himself was elected in 1674 following his great victory over the Turks at Khotyn, he faced exactly the same problem. If in Poland his grand hetman, Stanisław Jabłonowski, was a strong supporter, in Lithuania his attempt to eclipse the influence of the Pac and Radziwiłł families by ignoring the basic principle of his predecessors since the mid-sixteenth century of bal- ancing the Lithuanian factions backfired spectacularly: his promotion of Benedykt Paweł Sapieha to the post of Lithuanian treasurer32 and Kazimi- erz Jan Sapieha to the post of grand hetman allowed them to run Lithua- nia virtually as a private fiefdom, until their grip was broken by a rebellion of their opponents, supported by a broad movement of the Lithuanian szlachta and August II’s Saxon troops, in 1700. Following the example of Janusz Radziwiłł, the disgraced Sapiehas promptly joined forces with Charles XII of Sweden after his invasion of Lithuania in January 1702. The wide powers of the hetmans, who even had the authority to conduct diplomatic relations with neighbouring states, derived in large part from their control over the army and the way it was financed. Apart from the fact that the Polish hetman controlled the quarter treasury, which funded the quarter army, almost all ministers raised units for the army. Since units were supported by drawing financially and for supply on terrain designated by the hetman, he also decided on which royal land units should be stationed. Since ministers and most members of the political elite leased royal land in the form of starosties, hetmans had great indirect influence over them.33 From Krzysztof II Radziwiłł under Sigismund III to

32 In fact Sobieski sanctioned Sapieha’s purchase of the post from the previous incum- bent, Hieronim Kryszpin Kirszensztein: Henryk Lulewicz and Andrzej Rachuba (ed.), Urzędnicy centralni i dostojnicy Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego XIV–XVIII wieku. Spisy (Kórnik, 1994), 158. 33 Andrzej Sowa, Świat ministrów Augusta II. Wartości i poglądy funkcjonujące w kręgu ministrów Rzeczypospolitej w latach 1702–28 (Cracow, 1995), 11. the empire and poland-lithuania, c. 1600–1806 257

Adam Sieniawski under August II, hetmans were able to build up substantial clienteles of nobles eager to receive the benefits of their substantial patronage power.34 The position was, in consequence, highly desirable, and appointments were often made for political rather than military considerations: the creation of the 70-year-old Lew Sapieha, grand chancellor of Lithuania and a man with no experience of military command, as Lith- uanian grand hetman in 1625 is perhaps the most famous example. Thus Stanisław Jabłonowski was the last truly talented military commander to serve as hetman. If in the Reich, Wallenstein was first dismissed and then murdered when he threatened to become too powerful, attempts to curb the powers of the hetmans in Poland-Lithuania were largely ineffective. The king could only leave the offices vacant for so long, as John Casimir, himself a talented commander, tried to do in the 1650s; his attempt in 1654 to persuade the sejm to introduce an oath of loyalty to the Commonwealth for the hetmans attracted considerable support among the szlachta, but failed to become law. His successful impeachment of Lubomirski paralleled Ferdinand II’s dismissal of Wallenstein in 1630, but it was followed by Lubomirski’s rokosz and there was no military reform in the Commonwealth to match the Peace of Prague, until 1717, when the hetmans were finally stripped of their powers to designate army billets.35 It was too late, however; the permanent army, supported by designated taxes, which was established in that year by the Silent Sejm was simply too small to matter. Thus if the Reich’s armies from the mid-seventeenth century were often much more than the sum of their parts, the Commonwealth after 1667 could no longer keep up in a world in which standing armies, ready for instant mobilization, were increasingly the norm. Its military system, dependent on the combination of a small standing army, a cadre of experienced men which formed the nucleus of a force raised by the state, local sejmiks and private entrepreneurs in time of need from a large pool of men with military experience, could no longer function effectively when, after 1648, the Commonwealth’s wars were largely fought on its own territory. The more a military historian of the Commonwealth looks at the Reich, the more impressive its seventeenth-century achievement appears.

34 For a study of Sieniawski and his officers, see Jerzy Ronikier, Hetman Adam Sien- iawski i jego regimentarze. Studium z historii mentalności szlachty polskiej, 1706–25 (Cracow, 1992). 35 For the reforms of 1717, see Jan Wimmer, Wojsko Rzeczypospolitej w dobie wojny północnej (Warsaw, 1956), 430–87.

An ‘Old Empire’ on the Periphery of the Old Empire: The Kingdom of Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries1

Géza Pálffy

While there have been many treatments to date of the special connection between the Holy Roman Empire and the lands of the Bohemian crown,2 researchers of the early modern age have so far scarcely addressed its relationship with the kingdom of Hungary.3 This is all the more surprising since the ruler of the Old Empire (Altes Reich) and the ruler of the kingdom of Hungary was often one and the same individual. Thus it was with Sigismund of Luxemburg (king of Hungary from 1387; king of the Romans 1410–33; Holy Roman Emperor 1433–7), Albert II of Habsburg (king of Hungary from 1437; king of the Romans 1438–9) and almost all rulers of the Old Empire from 1558 right up until the dissolution of that structure in 1806. The study below seeks to fill the above-mentioned gap with reference to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It surveys the links between the Holy Roman Empire and the kingdom of Hungary in this period, examining systems of connections in five areas: 1. State organization; 2. Defence; 3. Economy; 4. Culture, law, the nobility, and titles; and 5. Ceremonial.

1 This study was financed by Hungary’s National Foundation for Scientific Research as Project No. 60,618. 2 For summaries of the earlier literature in Czech and German, see Jaroslav Pánek, ‘Der böhmische Staat und das Reich in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Volker Press (ed.), Alternativen zur Reichsverfassung in der Frühen Neuzeit? (Munich, 1995), 169–78; cf. the studies by Jaro- slav Pánek and Petr Matˇa in the present volume. 3 The findings so far are given in Moritz Csáky, ‘Karl V., Ungarn, die Türkenfrage und das Reich. Zu Beginn der Regierung Ferdinands als König von Ungarn’, in Heinrich Lutz and Elisabeth Müller-Luckner, (ed.), Das römisch-deutsche Reich im politischen System Karls V. (Munich/Vienna, 1982), 223–37; Franz Brendle, ‘Habsburg, Ungarn und das Reich im 16. Jahrhundert’, in: Wilhelm Kühlmann et al. (ed.), Deutschland und Ungarn in ihren Bildungs- und Wissenschaftsbeziehungen während der Renaissance (Stuttgart, 2004), 1–25. 260 géza pálffy

1. An ‘Old Empire’ Outside the Old Empire but Inside the Habsburg Monarchy

From the second half of the 1550s, the Latin title conferred on Ferdinand of Habsburg and his successors as kings of Hungary was the following: ‘Dei gratia Romanorum imperator semper augustus ac Germaniae, Hun- gariae, Bohemiae, Dalmatiae, Croatiae, Sclavoniae, Ramae, Serviae, Gali- tiae, Lodomeriae, Cumaniae, Bulgariaeque rex etc.’, i.e. ‘By the Grace of God Roman Emperor, always August, and King of Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Rama [i.e. Bosnia], Serbia, Galicia, Lodomeria, Cumania, Bulgaria, etc.’.4 The title well indicates that from the mid-sixteenth century onwards the destinies of the Holy Roman Empire and the kingdom of Hungary were closely bound together, as indeed they had been during the reigns of Sigismund of Luxemburg and Albert II of Habsburg.5 In spite of this though, Hungary was never a part of the Holy Roman Empire. Similarly to the lands of the Bohemian crown or the Habs burg Netherlands, it lay on the periphery of this Empire, not as a formation within the Empire’s frontiers, as they were, but as one outside them, similarly to the kingdom of Denmark. Nor was it one of the hereditary provinces (Erblande), although even today some German, British and American works list it among them. In the early modern age, then, the kingdom of Hungary operated as a completely independent kingdom outside the borders and organiza- tional framework of the Holy Roman Empire. This the Hungarian political elite always emphasized with pride, as for instance in a memorandum drawn up in the summer of 1652 in connection with the appointment of György Lippay, archbishop of Esztergom (in office 1642–66), to the rank of cardinal: ‘l’Ongheria essendo provincia separata, non ha che far con l’imperi’.6 Only on the level of political propaganda was Hungary annexed to the Empire. However, emperors generally used this interpretation only to extract financial and military support from the estates of the Empire. One such instance occurred in July 1505, when, in a proposition submitted

4 Magyar Országos Levéltár, Budapest [hereinafter MOL], E 148, Neo-regestrata acta, Fasc. 1664, No. 59 (1.12.1563); ibid., A 57, Libri regii Vol. 4, p. 74 (28.8.1588). 5 Elemér Mályusz, Kaiser Sigismund in Ungarn, 1387–1437 (Budapest, 1990); Imre Takács et al. (ed.), Sigismundus rex et imperator. Kunst und Kultur zur Zeit Sigismunds von Luxem- burg, 1387–1437. Ausstellungskatalog (Budapest/Luxemburg, 2006). 6 Péter Tusor, Purpura Pannonica. Az esztergomi ‘bíborosi szék’ kialakulásának előzményei a 17. században. (Budapest/Rome, 2005), 231, no. 17. the kingdom of hungary and the holy roman empire 261 to the Reichstag assembled in Cologne, Maximilian, King of the Romans, wished to secure military assistance from the estates in order to acquire the throne of Hungary, stressing: ‘verhoffet [Ungarn] zu dem heiligen Reich zu pringen’.7 According to research by Winfried Schulze, similar plans emerged in the late sixteenth century also.8 There was at this time almost no possibility of integrating it. In existence for 500 years, possessed of powerful estates and—as we shall see— crucial to the German territories from the military, financial and economic point of view, the kingdom of Hungary could not easily be annexed to the Empire. This was so despite the arrival in the country of significant waves of German settlers during the Middle Ages, with the result that Germans constituted a major ethnic group in the multiethnic kingdom. The above difficulties are well indicated by the following example. In 1577, there was a plan to evict the holders (the cathedral chapter) from the fortress town (Festungsstadt) of Győr, in western Hungary, and to annex it to Lower Austria. The town was of vital importance for the defence of Vienna, residence city of the Habsburgs and the Empire’s principal administrative centre (Residenzstadt und Reichshauptstadt), against the Turks. However, as a result of political conflicts with the Hungarian estates and economic considerations stemming from the need to supply Vienna, this plan was very quickly dropped.9 The mortgaging to the Habsburgs of parts of western Hungary was merely a temporary, albeit long-lived, phenomenon. The castles, manors and towns held by them there from 1447 all returned to the kingdom of Hungary, in the mid-seventeenth century.10 The list of monarchical titles given above attested to another two important facts. On the one hand, it indicated that first and foremost it was their common ruler, the imperator et rex, the emperor and king, that linked together the Holy Roman Empire and the kingdom of Hungary. Since from 1556/8 onwards both offices were filled by members of the Habsburg house of Austria, Hungary became a key possession of the new

7 András Kubinyi, ‘Az 1505. évi rákosi országgyűlés és a szittya ideológia’, Századok, 140 (2006), 361–74, 363–4. 8 Winfried Schulze, Reich und Türkengefahr im späten 16. Jahrhundert. Studien zu den politischen und gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen einer äußeren Bedrohung (Munich, 1978), 69–70. 9 Lajos Gecsényi, ‘A végvári harcok taktikája. Török lesvetés Győr alatt 1577–ben’, in István Draskóczy (ed.), Scripta manent. Ünnepi tanulmányok a 60. életévét betöltött Gerics József professzor tiszteletére (Budapest, 1994), 165–75, at 172. 10 István Bariska, A Szent Koronáért elzálogosított Nyugat-Magyarország, 1447–1647 (Szombathely, 2007). 262 géza pálffy

Habsburg Monarchy in central Europe. In other words, it became an element of a particular composite state,11 one which Thomas Winkelbauer not long ago called ‘a monarchical union of monarchical unions of corporative states and a composite state of composite states’.12 The kingdom of Hungary, then, became a decisive part not of the Old Empire, but of this new European power, territorially, militarily and economically. This—as we shall see—made its connection with the Holy Roman Empire at least as close as it had been during the first third of the fifteenth century during the rule of Sigismund of Luxemburg, the rex et imperator whose base was the Hungarian capital (at that time Buda).13 On the other hand, the approximately ten royal titles borne by a ruler of Hungary at this time referred to another highly important circumstance. From the point of view of state organization, the kingdom of Hungary was more than, and different from, the Austrian hereditary provinces or the lands of the Bohemian crown. If we ignore for a moment Croatia and Slavonia, the majority of these titles referred to countries or parts of countries in east-central Europe that had been held earlier, at various times during the Middle Ages. Despite this, however, the Hungarian state was still a smaller composite state in its own right, or, to put it another way, a smaller empire; indeed, one could describe it as an ‘old empire’ on the edge of the Old Empire. In the late Middle Ages, Slavonia, in the southwest of the country, and Transylvania, in the east, even had local diets (Lat. conventus/congregatio generalis), while the kingdom of Croatia, in union with the Hungarian state since 1102, had a separate Croatian diet (sabor). These assemblies represented themselves at the Hungarian diet (Lat. dieta, comitia) by way of the deputies they sent there.14

11 For the concept, see J.H. Elliott, ‘A Europe of Composite Monarchies’, Past and Present, 117 (1992), 48–71. 12 Thomas Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht. Länder und Untertanen des Hauses Habsburg im konfessionellen Zeitalter, vol. 1 (Vienna, 2003), 25; cf. R.J.W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550–1700. An Interpretation (Oxford, 1979); Petr Matˇa and Thomas Winkelbauer, ‘Einleitung: Das Absolutismuskonzept, die Neubewertung der frühneuzeitlichen Monarchie und der zusammengesetzte Staat der österreichischen Habsburger im 17. und frühen 18. Jahrhundert’, in eid. (ed.), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1620 bis 1740. Leistungen und Grenzen des Absolutismusparadigmas (Stuttgart, 2006), 7–42. 13 Mályusz, Kaiser Sigismund; Takács et al., Sigismundus rex et imperator. 14 Pál Engel, The Realm of St. Stephen. A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526 (Lon- don/New York, 2001); András Kubinyi, König und Volk im spätmittelalterlichen Ungarn. Städteentwicklung, Alltagsleben und Regierung im mittelalterlichen Königreich Ungarn (Herne, 1998). the kingdom of hungary and the holy roman empire 263

Table 1a. The kingdom of Hungary, the Austrian hereditary provinces and the lands of the Bohemian crown around 1500 (comparison) Kingdom of Hungary Hereditary Provinces Bohemian Lands Size in km2 320,000 110,000 125,000 Population 3,300,000 1,815,000 2,300,000

Table 1b. The kingdom of Hungary, the Austrian hereditary provinces and the lands of the Bohemian crown around 1600 (comparison) Kingdom of Hungary Hereditary Provinces Bohemian Lands Size in km2 ca. 120,000 110,000 125,000 Population 1,800,000 2,390,000 2,950,000 Annual revenues in Rhenish florins ca. 800,000 ca. 800–900,000 ca. 700,000 Sources: P. Engel, The Realm of St. Stephen, 323–44; A. Kubinyi, König und Volk, 148–82; T. Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht, 13–14, 29; Géza Pálffy, The Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy in the Sixteenth Century (New York, 2009); István Kenyeres, ‘Die Finanzen des Königreichs Ungarn in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhun- derts’, in Edelmayer et al. (ed.), Finanzen und Herrschaft. 84–122.

Finally, at around the time of the battle of Mohács (1526), the geographical size, population and revenues of the realm of St. Stephen—excluding, of course, those lands that were merely claimed (Bosnia, Serbia, etc.)— exceeded those of not only the Austrian hereditary provinces, but also the lands of the Bohemian crown (Table 1/a). Accordingly, taken as a whole its part in central Europe was much more significant than that of either of these two assemblages. For this reason, the leading dynasties in Central Europe (the Luxemburgs, the Habsburgs and the Jagiellons) all contended for the throne of Hungary in the fifteenth century. The situation changed significantly during the fifty years that followed the battle of Mohács, on account of the Ottoman advance and Hungary’s splitting into three parts. Even so, in the second half of the sixteenth century the territory of the kingdom of Hungary governed by the house of Austria still approximated to that of the Austrian hereditary provinces or that of the lands of the Bohemian crown (Table 1/b). Owing to an economic upturn in agriculture, the revenues it yielded (approximately 800,000 Rhenish florins annually) were so appreciable that they amounted to one-third of those of the entire Habsburg Monarchy. The Old Empire, then, had a pressing need for the kingdom of Hungary in this period. 264 géza pálffy

2. Defending Central Europe against the Ottomans with the Help of the Imperial Turkish Tax

The advance of the Ottomans in the sixteenth century brought about close ties between the Holy Roman Empire and the kingdom of Hungary in the space of just a few decades. As Table 2 shows, the considerable revenues of the kingdom were insufficient to finance a new border defence system against the Ottomans,15 namely to meet the pay of 20–22,000 border fortress soldiers, not to mention the other military expenses involved. The last mentioned, i.e. the costs of border fortress improvements, matériel, foodstuffs, a new military administration, a Danube flotilla, intelligence gathering, and a military postal system (approximately ca. 4–500,000 Rhenish florins annually) matched even those of the Habsburg court in Vienna.16 They were, however, only those incurred in peacetime. In periods of open and protracted warfare—e.g. in the 1540s–50s, during the long Turkish war (1591/3–1606) or at the time of the so-called war of Liberation (1683–99)—significant military forces and even greater financial support from the various territories of the Holy Roman Empire were required. Since the kingdom of Hungary was merely a neighbour of the Old Empire, the German estates were legally obliged to offer assistance to it only at those rare times when the territory of the Empire (Reichster- ritorium) was itself threatened. For this reason, at meetings of the imperial diet emperors were obliged to back up their demands relating to the imperial Turkish tax (Reichstürkensteuer) with increasingly weighty background material.17 This was no easy task, since viewed from Regensburg

15 Géza Pálffy, ‘The Origins and Development of the Border Defence System against the Ottoman Empire in Hungary, up to the Early Eighteenth Century’, in Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (ed.), Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe: The Military Confines in the Era of the Ottoman Conquest (Leiden etc., 2000), 3–69; id., ‘Die Türkenabwehr in Ungarn im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert—ein Forschungsdesiderat’, Anzeiger der philosophisch- historischen Klasse der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 137, no. 1 (2002), 99–131. 16 Géza Pálffy, ‘Der Preis für die Verteidigung der Habsburgermonarchie. Die Kosten der Türkenabwehr in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Friedrich Edelmayer et al. (ed.), Finanzen und Herrschaft. Materielle Grundlagen fürstlicher Politik in den habsburgischen Ländern und im Heiligen Römischen Reich im 16. Jahrhundert (Munich/ Vienna, 2003), 20–44. 17 On the imperial Turkish tax: Wolfgang Steglich, ‘Die Reichstürkenhilfe in der Zeit Karls V.’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 11 (1972), 7–55; Schulze, Reich und Türkengefahr; Kurt Wessely, ‘Die Regensburger “harrige” Reichshilfe 1576’, in Ekkehard Völkl and Wessely (ed.), Die russische Gesandtschaft am Regensburger Reichstag 1576 (Regensburg/Kallmünz, 1976), 31–55; Winfried Schulze, ‘Imperial Taxes in the 16th Century’, in Richard Bonney (ed.), the kingdom of hungary and the holy roman empire 265

Table 2. The pay bill for the soldiers of the Hungarian-Croatian border defence system and the annual revenues and estimated military expenses of the kingdom of Hungary in the second half of the sixteenth century Year Pay bill for the This pay as a This pay as a soldiers of the border proportion (%) of proportion (%) of fortresses annual revenues* military expenses** from the annual revenues 1554 761,766 fl. 15,5 kr. 100 50 1556 945,475 fl. 39 kr. 81 40.5 1558 1,025,040 fl. 75 37.5 1572 1,220,761 fl. 39 kr. 63 31.5 1576 1,658,736 fl. 30 kr. 46 23 1577 1,461,900 fl. 53 26.5 1578 1,368,348 fl. 56 28 1582 1,418,292 fl. 36 kr. 54 27 1593 1,726,622 fl. 54 kr. 45 22.5

*ca. 800,000 Rhenish florins, **max. = 400,000 Rhenish florins Sources: Pálffy, ‘Der Preis’, 31. or Augsburg the theatre of war in Hungary appeared very far away, and since, generally speaking, only superficial information relating to Hungary was available in the Empire. The sole exception in this regard was among those merchant-banking families in southern Germany (e.g. in Nurem- berg, Augsburg and Ulm) who had strong links with Hungary even before 1526.18 This knowledge is well shown by the 1588 travel account written by the prominent Ulm citizen Veit Marchthaler that presents, in fascinating detail, not only geographical, ethnic and economic conditions in Hungary, but also everyday life there.19 On the other hand, large numbers of those

Economic Systems and State Finance, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1996), 261–79; Peter Rauscher, ‘Kaiser und Reich. Die Reichstürkenhilfen von Ferdinand I. bis zum Beginn des “Langen Türken- kriegs” 1548–93’, in Edelmayer et al. (ed.), Finanzen und Herrschaft, 45–83; Zoltán Péter Bagi, ‘Az 1594. évi regensburgi birodalmi gyűlés hadügyi rendeletei’, Aetas (2002/1), 5–14. 18 Wolfgang von Stromer, Oberdeutsche Hochfinanz, 1350–1450 (3 pts, Wiesbaden, 1970); András Kubinyi, ‘Die Nürnberger Haller in Ofen: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Südosthandels im Spätmittelalter’, Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürn- berg, 2 (1963–4), 80–128; id. ‘Die Städte Ofen und Pest und der Fernhandel am Ende des 15. und am Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Ingomar Bog (ed.), Der Außenhandel Ostmit- teleuropas, 1450–1650. Die ostmitteleuropäischen Volkswirtschaften in ihren Beziehungen zu Mitteleuropa (Cologne/Vienna, 1971), 342–433. 19 Katalin S. Németh, ‘Eine wiederentdeckte Reisebeschreibung. Veit Marchthaler, Ungarische Sachen, 1588’, in Kühlmann et al. (ed.), Deutschland und Ungarn, 207–18. 266 géza pálffy attending the imperial diets had no such information. The emperor and his advisers therefore had to prove in various ways that the kingdom of Hungary was the bastion and bulwark of the German territories, i.e. ‘Cron Ungern—ein Propugnakel unnd Vormaur Deutscher Lannden’, to give the formulation used at the Reichstag of Speyer in 1570.20 The problem of securing help against the Turks was, of course, exploited very skilfully by the Protestant estates in defence of their own positions.21 Despite this, in the sixteenth century most of the imperial proposals submitted after the fall of the Hungarian capital (Buda) in 1541 were successful. The appendices to these gave detailed accounts of fortresses in Hungary being lost to the Ottomans, and painted a vivid picture of raids on Hungarian and Austrian territories. In addition, the dispatches sent by the renowned commander Lazarus Freiherr von Schwendi (1522–83) from the Hungarian theatre of operations proved effective in convincing the estates, as did the ominous reports from Habsburg ambassadors in Istanbul.22 But the close connection between the Empire and the kingdom of Hungary, as well as increased interest in Hungary, is shown by the fact that we find the most complete records regarding the fortresses of the border defence system in Reichstagsakten in Vienna, Nuremberg and Dresden.23 Indeed, special maps showing Hungary and the border defence system were even prepared for the imperial estates; one such was made as early as that Speyer Reichstag in 1570.24 To the best of our knowledge, this last mentioned map has not survived. Nevertheless, not long ago there came to light in Dresden our most detailed sixteenth-century manuscript map of Hungary to date, a work by the Italian military architect Nicolò Angielini (with a dedication in Latin to Duke-Elector August of Saxony).25 More-

20 Staatsarchiv Nürnberg; Ansbacher Reichstagsakten [hereinafter StA Nürnberg, Ansbacher RTA] (Rep. 136) Bd. 43, no. 19. 21 Schulze, Reich und Türkengefahr. 22 StA Nürnberg, Ansbacher RTA (Rep. 136) Bd. 40, no. 19 (1551–66); ibid., Bd. 48, no. 45 (1575–81); etc. 23 Géza Pálffy, ‘A magyarországi és délvidéki végvárrendszer 1576. és 1582. évi jegyzékei’, Hadtörténelmi Közlemények, 108 (1995), 114–85; id., ‘Türkenabwehr, Grenzsoldatentum und die Militarisierung der Gesellschaft in Ungarn in der Frühen Neuzeit’, Historisches Jahr- buch, 123 (2003), 111–48, at 118–20. 24 StA Nürnberg, Ansbacher RTA (Rep. 136) Bd. 43, no. 19; Maximilian Lanzinner (ed.), Der Reichstag zu Speyer, 1570. Vol. 1: Protokolle (Göttingen, 1988), 480, no. 140; Géza Pálffy, Európa védelmében. Haditérképészet a Habsburg Birodalom magyarországi határvidékén a 16–17. században (2nd edn, Pápa, 2000), 44–5. 25 Hans Brichzin, ‘Eine Ungarnkarte von Nicolaus Angielus, sowie Grund- und Aufrisse ungarischer Festungen aus dem Jahr 1566 im Sächsischen Hauptstaatsarchiv zu Dresden’, Cartographica Hungarica, 2 (1992), 39–43; 4 (1994), 12–18; 5 (1996), 8–11. the kingdom of hungary and the holy roman empire 267 over, before the making of these maps, the War Council (Hofkriegsrat) in Vienna, established in 1556, surveyed the kingdom of Hungary all the way from the Adriatic Sea to the Transylvanian border using Italian military architects. This is excellently attested to by the maps of the border district that are kept in the Badisches Generallandesarchiv in Karlsruhe and at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna.26 Finally, evidence of strengthening German–Hungarian links is furnished by the demand among leading politicians of the kingdom of Hungary for the manuscript and printed newsletters (handgeschriebene und gedruckte neue Zeitungen) that were increasingly widespread in the German and Italian territories.27 On account of all this, the imperial estates offered considerable financial and military support to the Hungarian-Croatian territories almost continuously during the sixteenth century (Table 3). This was still the case when some of the so-called ‘Turkish assistance’ (Türkenhilfe) voted failed to come in, or when it totalled less than the regular annual support from the estates of Inner and Lower Austria (this played an ever bigger role in the financing of border defence, on account of the dangers faced there).28 Even so, the imperial estates played a crucial role in the establishment, in the period from the 1550s to the 1570s, of the Hungarian and Croatian- Slavonian defence system protecting central Europe, as well as in the fortification of the ‘imperial city’ (i.e. Vienna). Of the six border fortress captaincies-general along the defence line in the 1570s–90s, four—namely those of Croatia, Kanizsa, Győr, and Upper Hungary—could scarcely have been funded without the imperial Turkish tax.29 The approximately 18,700,000 Rhenish florins it yielded between 1576 and 1606 was twenty- five times the above-mentioned substantial annual revenue (ca. 800,000 Rhenish florins) generated by the kingdom of Hungary.30 Later on, in the seventeenth century, Hungary would feel acutely the lack of this assistance.

26 Géza Pálffy, Die Anfänge der Militärkartographie in der Habsburgermonarchie. Die regelmäßige kartographische Tätigkeit der Burgbaumeisterfamilie Angielini an den kroatisch- slawonischen und den ungarischen Grenzen in den 1560–1570er-Jahren (Budapest, 2011). 27 Zsuzsa Barbarics, ‘Die Sammlungen handschriftlicher Zeitungen in Mittel- und Südosteuropa in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Václav Bůžek and Pavel Král (ed.), Společnost v zemích habsburské monarchie a její obraz v pramenech, 1526–1740 (České Budějovice, 2006), 219–44; Nóra G. Etényi, Hadszíntér és nyilvánosság. A magyarországi török háború hírei a 17. századi német újságokban (Budapest, 2003). 28 Cf. Winfried Schulze, Landesdefension und Staatsbildung. Studien zum Kriegswesen des innerösterreichischen Territorialstaates, 1564–1619 (Vienna etc., 1973); Géza Pálffy, A császárváros védelmében. A győri főkapitányság története, 1526–98 (Győr, 1999). 29 Pálffy, ‘Der Preis’; Rauscher, ‘Kaiser und Reich’. 30 Winfried Schulze, ‘Die Erträge der Reichssteuern zwischen 1576 und 1606’, Jahrbuch für die Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands, 27 (1978), 169–85. 268 géza pálffy

Table 3. The Imperial Turkish Tax (Reichstürkenhilfe) in the sixteenth century Year Amount Period Purpose 1530/32 12 Römermonate 1532/33 Turkish war 1541 1.5 Römermonate 1541 ‘Turkish assistance’ 1542 Gemeiner Pfennig 1542 Turkish war 1543 6 Römermonate 1543 Border defence system 1544/51 Gemeiner Pfennig Up to the end of 1544 Turkish war 1548/51 500,000 fl. 1548–52 ‘Turkish assistance’/ Border fortresses 1556/57 16 Römermonate 1557/58 ‘Turkish assistance’ 1559 500,000 fl. 1560–62 ‘Turkish assistance’ / Border fortresses 1566 24 Römermonate 1566 ‘Turkish assistance’ / Turkish war 1566 24 Römermonate 1567–69 ‘Turkish assistance’ / Turkish war 1570 12 Römermonate 1572–75 ‘Turkish assistance’ / Border fortresses 1576 60 Römermonate 1576–82 ‘Turkish assistance’ / Border fortresses 1582 40 Römermonate 1583–87 ‘Turkish assistance’ / Border fortresses 1594 80 Römermonate 1594–1597 ‘Turkish assistance’ / Turkish war 1597/98 60 Römermonate 1598–1602 ‘Turkish assistance’ / Turkish war 1 Römermonat = ca. 128,000 Rhenish florins Sources: Rauscher, ‘Kaiser und Reich’, 62.

Then, during the long period of peace with the Ottomans that followed the peace of Zsitvatorok (1606) and during the Thirty Years War (1618–48), the imperial Turkish tax was almost completely neglected. It is no coincidence that this period saw the Hungarian border defence system reach one of the lowest points in its history.31 In addition to financial support, on many occasions the Holy Roman Empire also gave appreciable military assistance in the interests of defence against the Ottomans, namely in 1532, 1542, 1552, and 1566–7, as well as in 1593–1606 and in 1663–4. At the same time, as is better known, the liberation of Hungary in the late seventeenth century would have been almost

31 István Czigány, Reform vagy kudarc? Kísérletek a magyarországi katonaság beillesz- tésére a Habsburg Birodalom haderejébe (Budapest, 2004), 69–98. the kingdom of hungary and the holy roman empire 269 inconceivable without the involvement of the Old Empire.32 In the sixteenth century, a decisive role in the battles with the Turks was played by the German heavy cavalry (Archibusier); subsequently, however, this part was taken on by the German foot soldiers (Landsknechte, Fußknechte). On the other hand, less known is the fact that the Empire and Hungary were linked together by a curiosity of military law. At the invitation of the Imperial Diet of Speyer in 1570, Schwendi,33 a German commander and military theorist known throughout Europe, edited a ‘book’ of military regulations (Reichsartikelbrief ) for the German foot-soldiers and another for the German cavalry (Reiterbestallung). These works were accepted by the German estates and were printed in Mainz in 1571. However, the arguments propounded in his Articul auf die teutsche Fußknechte had been worked out by Schwendi while in Upper Hungary in 1566–7. At that time, acting on instructions from Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor and king of Hungary, he had, using German, Austrian, Bohemian-Moravian, and Hungarian troops, recaptured significant territories from the Ottoman vassal János Zsigmond, prince of Transylvania. Indeed, it was then that Schwendi worked out Latin- and Hungarian- language military regulations for the Hungarian foot soldiers and cavalry (hussars) respectively. These were translated into Croat at the beginning of 1578, and used in the Croatian and Slavonian captaincies-general up to the end of the seventeenth century.34 The first comprehensive regulations for German foot-soldiers and cavalry were thus closely related to the earli- est Hungarian and Croatian military regulations.

32 For the significant literature on this see, e.g., Zygmunt Abrahamowicz et al., Die Tür- kenkriege in der historischen Forschung (Wien, 1983); Karl Otmar von Aretin, ‘Das Heilige Römische Reich und die Türkenkriege’, Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 33 (1987), 361–6; Ferenc Szakály, Hungaria eliberata. Die Rückeroberung von Buda im Jahr 1686 und Ungarns Befreiung von der Osmanenherrschaft, 1683–1718 (Budapest, 1987); Jan Paul Niederkorn, Die europäischen Mächte und der ‘‘Lange Türkenkrieg” Kaiser Rudolfs II., 1593–1606 (Vienna, 1993); Antonio Liepold, Wider den Erbfeind christlichen Glaubens: Die Rolle des niederen Adels in den Türkenkriegen des 16. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt a. M. etc., 1998); Sándor László Tóth, A mezőkeresztesi csata és a tizenöt éves háború (Szeged, 2000). 33 For a recent work on Schwendi, see Thomas Niklas, Um Macht und Einheit des Reiches. Konzeption und Wirklichkeit der Politik bei Lazarus von Schwendi, 1522–83 (Husum, 1995). 34 Géza Pálffy, Katonai igazságszolgáltatás a királyi Magyarországon a XVI–XVII. században (Győr, 1995), 72–80. 270 géza pálffy

3. Economic Relations between Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire

The border defence system in Hungary meant more than just financial and military burdens for the Empire. Owing to the ‘military revolution’ in the sixteenth century, there was a need in the Hungarian theatre, too, for good-quality gunpowder weapons in larger and larger number.35 The wars with the Ottomans in Hungary and the needs of border defence in that country opened up a new and extremely large market for imperial cities prominent in the supplying of weapons and other matériel. By far the greater part of the profit from this trade in weapons and other supplies was skimmed off by Nuremberg and Augsburg merchant bankers,36 who furnished the Habsburg court with credit on a continuous basis.37 This is shown very well by the 1593–4 accounts of Vienna’s main arsenal (Hauptzeughaus). At this time, most of the cannon, almost all of the personal firearms and a large part of the personal armour used in the defence of Hungary originated from the workshops of Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, and other imperial cities. Such equipment also came to the country from producers in Innsbruck, Salzburg and Prague. Additionally, various other kinds of matériel were delivered in considerable quantity from the Empire

35 The most important works on the topic are Michael Roberts, ‘The Military Revolu- tion, 1550–1650’, in id., Essays in Swedish History (London, 1967), 195–225; Jeremy Black, A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, 1550–1800 (Atlantic High- lands, NJ, 1991); Brian M. Downing, The Military Revolution and Political Change. Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe (Princeton, N.J., 1992; David Eltis, The Military Revolution in Sixteenth-Century Europe (New York, 1995); Clifford J. Rogers (ed.), The Military Revolution Debate. Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe (Boulder etc., 1995); Jean Bérenger (ed.), La Révolution militaire en Europe, XVe– XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1998); Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (2nd edn, Cambridge, 1999). For Hungary cf. József Kelenik, ‘The Military Revolution in Hungary’, in Dávid and Fodor (ed.), Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs, 117–59. 36 Helfried Valentinitsch, ‘Nürnberger Waffenhändler und Heereslieferanten in der Steiermark im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg, 64 (1977), 165–82; Peter Krenn (ed.), Trommeln und Pfeifen—Militärzelte— Anderthalbhänder—Nürnberger Waffen—Waffenhandel und Gewehrerzeugung in der Steiermark (Graz, 1976). 37 Othmar Pickl, ‘Universales Kaisertum und Hoffinanz. Die Kreditoren der Habsburger von Maximilian I. bis Leopold I.,’ in Herwig Ebner et al. (ed.), Forschungen zur Landes- und Kirchengeschichte. Festschrift Helmut J. Mezler-Angelberg zum 65. Geburtstag (Graz, 1988), 377–89; Reinhard Hildebrandt, ‘Der Kaiser und seine Bankiers. Ein Beitrag zum kaiserlichen Finanzwesen des 16. Jahrhunderts,’ in Edelmayer et al. (ed.), Finanzen und Herrschaft, 234–45; Peter Rauscher, Zwischen Ständen und Gläubigern. Die kaiserlichen Finanzen unter Ferdinand I. und Maximilian II., 1556–76 (Vienna/Munich, 2004), 343–54. the kingdom of hungary and the holy roman empire 271 to Hungary.38 Indicative of the close ties in the field of military supplies is the fact that citizens of Augsburg and Nuremberg often turned up in Vienna and Graz on arms-related business, even working as master-gun- ners, cannon-founders or makers of other weapons in the royal arsenal (königliches Zeughaus) at Kassa.39 The Hungarian theatre of war, then, was heavily reliant on assistance from the Old Empire, not just in the area of soldiers’ pay, but also in that of military equipment and supplies. German–Hungarian interdependence produced very close commercial ties in other fields of economic activity, too. The above-mentioned travel account by the Ulm merchant banker Veit Marchthaler well indicates that, as during the late Middle Ages, the burghers of southern Germany devoted conspicuous attention to Hungary, and that they continued to do so regardless of the Turkish wars. The same was true for the merchants of Vienna. Meat supplies for the imperial city, and for the Habsburg court depended appreciably on Hungary, as did grain and wine supplies, albeit to a lesser extent. Since the population of the Austrian, German and Bohe- mian territories grew by 20–25 per cent in the sixteenth century (in line with the general trend in Europe),40 provisioning the southern regions of the Old Empire was possible in large part only from Hungary. The kingdom of Hungary, then, became not just a protective bastion, but also a source of food for the Austrian and German territories and for the Habs burg court in Vienna.41 In the second half of the sixteenth century, some 100,000 Hungarian cattle annually were driven into the hereditary provinces and the Empire.

38 Hofkammerarchiv, Wien [hereinafter HKA]; Niederösterreichische Herrschaftsakten W-61/C/90/B [rote Nr. 300/2] fol. 1081–1124. 39 Géza Pálffy, ‘Kriegswirtschaftliche Beziehungen zwischen der Habsburgermonarchie und der ungarischen Grenze gegen die Osmanen in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahr- hunderts, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des königlichen Zeughauses in Kaschau’, Ungarn-Jahrbuch, 27 (2004), 17–40; István H. Németh, Várospolitika és gazdaságpolitika a 16–17. századi Magyarországon: A felső-magyarországi városszövetség, vol. 1 (Budapest, 2004), 433–6. 40 Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht, 13–15. 41 From the significant literature on this see, e.g., the following monographs and collected studies: Bog (ed.), Der Außenhandel Ostmitteleuropas; Othmar Pickl (ed.), Die wirt- schaftlichen Auswirkungen der Türkenkriege. Die Vorträge des 1. Internationalen Grazer Symposions zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte Südosteuropas (Graz, 1971); Ekkehard Westermann (ed.), Internationaler Ochsenhandel, 1350–1750. Akten des 7th International Economic History Congress Edinburgh 1978 (Stuttgart, 1979); Vera Zimányi (ed.), Studien zur deutschen und ungarischen Wirtschaftsentwicklung, 16.–20. Jahrhundert (Budapest, 1985); Vera Zimányi, Economy and Society in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Hungary, 1526–1650 (Budapest, 1987); Győző Ember, Magyarország nyugati külkereskedelme a 16. szá- zad közepén (Budapest, 1988); Zsigmond Pál Pach, Hungary and the European Economy in Early Modern Times (Aldershot, 1994). 272 géza pálffy

Many tens of thousands of Hungarian sheep, too, were sold there. In addition, Germany’s princely courts and cities could not have managed without Hungarian wine, suet or honey; Tokay wine even found its way to Lazarus von Schwendi’s household in Alsace.42 For the management of this commerce, German merchant bankers possessed of significant working capital employed agents not just in Vienna and Graz, but also in the more important cities of Hungary (Nagyszombat, Pozsony, Győr, Kassa). The role of the Hungarian suppliers was made more important by the fact that German merchants did not venture into Hungarian districts where there was an Ottoman presence. In return for the livestock exported, German trading firms supplied textiles, various manufactures and luxury goods (knives, tools, other hardware, clocks) and spices to the courts of Hungarian magnates and to Hungarian towns and border fortresses.43 The healthy state of trade with the Holy Roman Empire is well indicated by the fact that more than 35 per cent (ca. 300,000 Rhenish florins) of the kingdom of Hungary’s revenues in the second half of the sixteenth century derived from customs duties (the so-called Dreißigst) (Table 4). The data in Table 4 eloquently attest that the mining of copper and precious metals in Hungary continued to be highly profitable, despite production from mines that were ever deeper and also prone to flooding. Income from mining in Hungary contributed approximately 10 per cent (ca. 200,000 Rhenish florins) of the state revenues enjoyed by the Hab- sburg Monarchy. Especially remarkable was the export of crude copper from the mines of the Garam district in so-called Lower Hungary. Addi- tional evidence for its importance is the fact that after the withdrawal of the Fuggers the more important copper mines were rented in the sixteenth century by such renowned German contractors as the Manlichs of Augsburg, then by the Paler–Weiß–Wagner–Herbst consortium and finally by the Paler–Castell syndicate; while in the seventeenth century they were hired first by the Palers and Henckels, then by the Rehlingens of Augsburg and later by the Joanellis of Italy.44

42 Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv [hereinafter HHStA], Wien; Reichshofkanzlei, Paß- briefe, Schwendi (1.4.1572). 43 Lajos Gecsényi, ‘Handelsbeziehungen zwischen Ungarn und den süddeutschen Städten am Anfang der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Herbert W. Wurster, et al. (ed.), Bayern— Ungarn Tausend Jahre. Aufsätze zur Bayerischen Landesausstellung 2001. Vorträge der Tagung ‘Bayern und Ungarn im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit’ in Passau (Passau/ Regensburg, 2001), 121–36. 44 Günter Probszt, ‘Der Neusohler “Kupferkauf ” ’, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 40 (1953), 289–326; Jozef Vlachovič, Slovenská med v 16–17. storočí the kingdom of hungary and the holy roman empire 273

Table 4. Annual revenues of the kingdom of Hungary in the second half of the sixteenth century (according to revenue type) Type of revenue Rhenish florins Type of revenue as a proportion of total annual revenue (%) Border customs duties 284,100 35.4 Mining, the trade in copper, 199,100 24.8 the minting of coins Treasury estates 164,200 20.4 War tax (Lat. dica and taxa) 94,000 11.7 Mortgaged estates 39,600 4.9 Customary tax of the Free 3200 0.4 Royal Towns (Lat. census) Others 18,800 2.4 Grand total 803,000 100 Sources: Kenyeres, ‘Die Finanzen des Königreichs Ungarn’, 111–13.

Summing up, we can say that even the unfavourable military situation pertaining after 1526 was unable to check the development of German– Hungarian economic ties. Despite its split into three parts, the kingdom of Hungary under Habsburg rule was able to remain an organic part of the economic and commercial system of central Europe right up to the beginning of the Thirty Years War. And although this major European conflict had a detrimental effect on agricultural activity and economic links, Hun- gary, situated on the outer periphery of the Old Empire, continued to supply food westwards. Despite the signs of crisis, it still in the seventeenth century fed the imperial city along with Austrian, Bavarian and Swabian territories, although to a decreasing extent.

4. Culture, Law, the Nobility, and Titles

The coexistence of the Reich and the realm of St. Stephen within the Habsburg Monarchy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries brought fruitful relations in many other fields also. In the present summary it will be sufficient to refer merely to the much researched links between the

(Bratislava, 1964); Reinhardt Hildebrand (ed.), Quellen und Regesten zu den Augsburger Handelshäusern Paler und Rehlinger, 1539–1664. Wirtschaft und Politik im 16.-17. Jahrhundert. Vol. 1: 1539–1623 (Stuttgart, 1996). 274 géza pálffy

Reformation in Germany and that in Hungary, and to the attendance of Hungarian students at universities within the Empire (peregrinatio aca- demica). On these subjects, various monographs and volumes of studies are available.45 Although of course these processes were not expressly connected with the dynasty governing the country (as indicated by the Reformation’s appearance in Hungary before 1526), coexistence in a new monarchic union led by the Habsburgs did—despite the dynasty’s Catho- lic nature—make the strengthening of ties easier. The same may also be said of the traditionally strong German links not only of printing and book culture in Hungary, but also of the country’s guild industry generally and of its mining.46 The roots of these ties likewise go back to the Middle Ages. As a graphic example from this point of view, we can quote the guild regulations of the armour-makers of Kassa in 1586, which state the following: ‘As for the masterpiece of us panzermacher, it is to be made and kept according to the custom of Nuremberg or Augsburg’.47 In view of the significant religious and cultural connections, it may seem surprising that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Ger- man system of law made scarcely any impression in Hungary, despite the commonalities of governance. Published at Nagyszombat in 1687, the Latin-language version (Forma processus judicii criminalis seu praxis criminalis) of the criminal law ordinance (Newe peinliche Landgerichtsordnung) issued by Emperor Ferdinand III in 1656 produced a more serious impact only in the eighteenth century.48 In this regard, the western Hungarian

45 For further literature see András Szabó (ed.), Iter Germanicum. Deutschland und die Ungarländische Reformierte Kirche im 16–17. Jahrhundert (Budapest, 1999); Márta Fata, Ungarn, das Reich der Stephanskrone, im Zeitalter der Reformation und Konfessionalisie- rung: Multiethnizität, Land und Konfession 1500 bis 1700 (Münster, 2000); Kühlmann et al. (ed.), Deutschland und Ungarn; Márta Fata, et al. (ed.), Peregrinatio Hungarica. Studenten aus Ungarn an deutschen und österreichischen Hochschulen vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 2006). 46 See, e.g., Holger Fischer and Ferenc Szabadváry (ed.), Technologietransfer und Wis- senschaftsaustausch zwischen Ungarn und Deutschland. Aspekte der historischen Beziehun- gen in Naturwissenschaft und Technik (Munich, 1995); István Monok and Péter Ötvös (ed.), Bürgerliche Kultur im Vergleich. Deutschland, die böhmischen Länder und das Karpaten- becken im 16. und 18. Jahrhundert (Szeged, 1998); István Monok (ed.), Blue Blood, Black Ink. Book Collection of Aristocratic Families from 1500 to 1700 (Budapest, 2005); Dieter Breuer et al. (ed.), Das Ungarnbild in der deutschen Literatur der frühen Neuzeit: Der Ungarische oder Dacianische Simplicissimus im Kontext barocker Reiseerzählungen und Simpliziaden (Bern etc., 2005). 47 Lajos Kemény, ‘Kassai fegyvergyártókról’, Archaeológiai Értesítő, 25 (1905), 270–4, at 273. 48 Gábor Béli and István Kajtár, ‘Österreichisches Strafrecht in Ungarn: Die “Praxis Criminalis” von 1687’, Zeitschrift für neuere Rechtsgeschichte, 16 (1994), 325–34. the kingdom of hungary and the holy roman empire 275 towns mortgaged to the Habsburgs in 1447 constitute an exception. Because of this transfer, the first general German criminal code, the Con- stitutio Criminalis Carolina ratified by Emperor Charles V in 1532, was frequently applied in criminal cases heard in Kőszeg. But imperial law— ‛kaiserliches Recht’ as contemporary sources called it—was only in force in Kőszeg until 1647, when the town returned to Hungary. Following this, despite a century of imperial jurisprudence, the Hungarian system of law was reinstated.49 This clearly demonstrates that the kingdom of Hungary possessed sources of law and legal practices of its own that had traditions going back centuries and that were wholly different from those of the Ger- man and Austrian territories. This state of affairs was determined principally by the country’s statute law (decreta) and common law (consuetudo), but also by the Tripartitum (1517),50 drawn up by István Werbőczy. Since according to the ancient liberties and customs of the country (Lat. vetus et antiqua libertas et consuetudo; Ger. alte Freiheit und Gewohnheit, altes Herkommen) the administration of justice belonged among the privileges of the Hungarian estates, in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries no great efforts could be made to change it. Thanks to the personal union binding the Old Empire and the kingdom of Hungary, in the seventeenth century the originally German title of count was adopted in Hungary, as the contemporary Latin-language donations, edited by the Hungarian aulic chancellery (Lat. Cancellaria Hungarica Aulica), put it: ‘comes, a Germanica natione Graf nuncupatus’. However, eighty years after 1526 the Hungarian aristocracy was—similarly to its counterpart in the lands of Bohemian crown51—still reluctant to acknowledge titles (Herzog, Fürst, Graf, Freiherr, Ritter) used in the Holy Roman Empire. The first proper title of count was received in 1606 by György Thurzó de Bethlenfalva, who was later Palatine (i.e. viceroy) of Hungary (1609–16).52 In the century which followed, it was primarily families wish- ing to join an aristocracy called ‘the cement of the Habsburg Monarchy’

49 István Bariska, ‘Rechtsgeschichtliche Fragestellung im westungarischen Raum im 16–17. Jahrhundert’, in Felix Tobler (ed.), Archivar und Bibliothekar. Bausteine zur Landeskunde des burgenländisch-westungarischen Raumes. Festschrift für Johann Seedoch zum 60. Geburtstag (Eisenstadt, 1999), 65–84. 50 János M Bak et al. (ed. and trans.), The Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hungary: A Work in Three Parts Rendered by Stephen Werbőczy (The ‘Tripartitum’)/Triparti- tum opus iuris consuetudinarii inclyti regni Hungariae per Stephanum de Werbewcz editum. (Idyllwild CA/Budapest, 2006). 51 Petr Matˇa, Svět české aristokracie, 1500–1700 (Prague, 2004), 52–66. 52 MOL Budapest, A 57 Vol. 5, pp. 738–53, and E 148, Fasc. 828, No. 16; HKA, Wien; Familienakten D-T 143, fols 54–6 (10.4.1606). 276 géza pálffy by Thomas Winkelbauer53 that accepted this title: Batthyány, Draskovich, Esterházy, Forgách, Homonnai Drugeth, Illésházy, Kéry, Koháry, Liszthy, Pálffy, and so on. However, unlike the Austrian and the Bohemian provinces, Hungary did not see the uniform or full introduction of imperial titles. Apart from the title of baron (Lat. titulus baronis regni Hungariae, baronatus, titulus Magnificentiae), which was partly of Hungarian origin anyway,54 only the title of count was adopted. The title Ritter, for example, certainly was not. Of course, some Hungarian aristocrats were awarded the title ‘prince of the Empire’ (Reichsfürst) in the seventeenth century, e.g. Palatine Pál Esterházy (1687) and Ferenc Rákóczi II (1698). In such cases, however, the letters patent were issued by the imperial court chancellery. Moreover, the granting of the title of count was not accompanied by the creation of a new grouping among the estates. The component parts of the upper table of the Hungarian diet continued to be the prelates (Lat. praelati), the so-called real barons who filled the high offices in the realm (Lat. veri barones regni, barones officiolati), the lord lieutenants of the counties (Lat. supremi comites), and the counts together with the barons (Lat. barones; sometimes magnates: Lat. simplices magnates).55

5. The Empire in Hungary—Hungary in the Habsburg Monarchy

The linkage between the kingdom of Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire exerted an influence on ceremonial too. Although more detailed research into this began only recently,56 it is already worth calling attention to some of its conclusions. At the imperial diets and coronations in Germany at this time, the kingdom of Hungary was represented not only by the Viennese Habsburg court’s Hungarian herald, but also by hussars in Hungarian festive attire led by Hungarian magnates. Such practice was

53 Thomas Winkelbauer, ‘Landhaus und Hofburg. Elemente der politischen Kultur der Habsburgermonarchie in der Frühen Neuzeit am Beispiel von Österreich unter der Enns’, in Halina Manikowska et al. (ed.), Political Culture in Central Europe, Tenth–Twentieth Cen- tury Vol. I: Middle Ages and Early Modern Era (Prague, 2005), 299–331, 305–12. 54 Bódog Schiller, Az örökös főrendiség eredete Magyarországon (Budapest, 1900), 262–75. 55 Tatjana Guszarova, ‘A 17. századi magyar országgyűlések résztvevői’, Levéltári Közlemények, 76 (2005), 93–148; István M. Szijártó, A diéta. A magyar rendek és az országgyűlés, 1708–92 (2nd edn, Keszthely, 2010), 46–9. 56 Géza Pálffy, ‘Krönungsmähler in Ungarn im Spätmittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit. Weiterleben des Tafelzeremoniells des selbständigen ungarischen Königshofes und Machtrepräsentation der ungarischen politischen Elite’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 115 (2007), 85–111, 116 (2008), 60–91. the kingdom of hungary and the holy roman empire 277 not ‘state display’, since the kingdom of Hungary was a part not of the Holy Roman Empire, but of the Habsburg Monarchy.57 This was symbolized most strongly by the funeral ceremonies for emperors from the Hab- sburg dynasty in the sixteenth century. These splendid occasions were in fact the most important ceremonial events of the Habsburg composite state reborn in the decades after 1526 in central Europe. The funeral processions of emperors showed with sensitivity the organization of this monarchical union and the ranking of its lands and provinces (Table 5). The data in this table comparing funerals of Habsburg emperors in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries allow three important statements. The first is that after 1558 the insignia of the kingdom of Hungary following the late Middle Ages (1439, 1493) simply reverted to the symbols of power used by the Habsburg dynasty; and the second that the five Hungarian flags paraded in the sixteenth century in these processions (one quarter of all the flags present) indicated conspicuously that the kingdom really was an ‘old empire’, to which a number of countries belonged or had belonged, either in actual fact or symbolically. The third is that the positioning of the flags and insignia in the order proves indisputably that within the Habsburg Monarchy the kingdom of Hungary occupied second place behind the Holy Roman Empire.58 Last but not least, it is worth pointing out that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries coronation ceremonies for kings of Hungary and their consorts59 were augmented with a special ‘imperial’ element. When an emperor’s son was crowned heir to the throne of Hungary while that emperor was still alive (e.g. Archduke Maximilian in 1563), or when the consort of a king of Hungary was crowned queen consort of Hungary after the imperial coronation ceremony, copies of the Imperial insignia (Reichsinsignien)—a sceptre, orb, sword and crown (Reichskrone)—were paraded in the Hungarian coronation procession, while during the ceremony

57 On the sixteenth century: Géza Pálffy, ‘Der ungarische Adel am Wiener Hof König Ferdinands I’, in Martina Fuchs et al. (ed.), Kaiser Ferdinand I. Ein mitteleuropäischer Herrscher (Münster, 2005), 95–110, at 107–9; on the seventeenth century: Ildikó Horn, ‘Esterházy Pál: Itinerarium in Germaniam 1653’, Sic Itur ad Astra, 1989, nos. 2–3, 21–48, at 24; Gábor Várkonyi, ‘Magyarok a római király választásán 1636–ban’, in Ildikó Horn (ed.), Perlekedő évszázadok. Tanulmányok Für Lajos történész 60. születésnapjára (Budapest, 1993), 187–214, 204–5. 58 Géza Pálffy, ‘Kaiserbegräbnisse in der Habsburgermonarchie—Königskrönungen in Ungarn. Ungarische Herrschaftssymbole in der Herrschaftsrepräsentation der Habsburger im 16. Jahrhundert’. Frühneuzeit-Info 19, no. 1 (2008), 41–66. 59 Cf. Štefan Holčik, Krönungsfeierlichkeiten in Pressburg, 1563–1830 (4th edn, Bratislava, 2005). 278 géza pálffy

Table 5. Flags of lands and provinces paraded in the funeral processions of Emperors Albrecht II, Frederick III, Ferdinand I, and Maximilian II Albrecht II Frederick III Ferdinand I Maximilian II (1439, Székesfehérvár) (1493, Vienna) (1565, Vienna) (1577, Prague) – Gorizia Gorizia Upper Austria Upper Austria Burgau Wendish Mark Common flag of Pfirt, Common flag of Pfirt, Kiburg Pfirt Swabia, Alsace, Tyrol, Swabia, Alsace, Tyrol, Portenau Portenau and Habsburg and Habsburg Pfirt Kiburg Habsburg Burgau Alsace Alsace Wendish Mark Tyrol Tyrol Habsburg – – Upper and Lower Upper and Lower Lusatia Lusatia Carniola Carniola Carinthia Carinthia Styria Styria – – Silesia Silesia Moravia Moravia Moravia – – Burgundy Burgundy Upper Austria Upper Austria Carniola Carniola Carinthia Carinthia Styria Styria Lower Austria Lower Austria Lower Austria Lower Austria – – Common flag of Bosnia, Common flag of Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Serbia, Bulgaria, and Cumania Cumania – – Slavonia Slavonia – – Croatia Croatia – – Dalmatia Dalmatia – – Spain = Castile, Aragon, – and Sicily Bohemia – Bohemia Bohemia Hungary Hungary Hungary Hungary Holy Roman Empire Holy Roman Empire Holy Roman Empire: Holy Roman Empire: 1. kleine Reichsfahne 1. kleine Reichsfahne 2. große Reichsfahne 2. große Reichsfahne Sources: HHStA Wien, Familienakten Kart. 60, Konv. 5, Tod Kaisers Ferdinand I, 5.8.1565, fol. 1–8; ibid., sine dato ‘Khay. exequien 1565’ fol. 1–3; HKA Wien, Reichsakten Fasz. 202/A fol. 270–271. the kingdom of hungary and the holy roman empire 279 the emperor wore his own so-called house crown (Haus- oder Privatkrone). This we can see on a print showing the coronation in Sopron in late 1681 of Eleonore-Magdalena, third wife of Emperor Leopold I, as queen consort of Hungary.60 All this served to indicate to those present that it was a Holy Roman Emperor who was sitting on the Hungarian throne, one who was appearing at a principal state occasion of the kingdom of Hun- gary, namely the coronation of his successor or consort, in this his highest office. Indeed, in February 1638, on the occasion of the coronation in Pozsony of Maria Anna of Spain, the consort of Emperor Ferdinand III, as queen consort of Hungary, members of the Hungarian political elite were even able to hold the imperial jewels in their hands.61 This was considered a sign of very special favour by members of the Viennese court. According to one Hungarian deputy they opined that ‘His Majesty must be ever fond of the Ungarische Nation for him to lay out such regalia before them’.62

60 Győr-Moson Sopron Megye Soproni Levéltára, Sopron Város Levéltára, Különkezelt dokumentumok, ‘1681. dec. 9.-i koronázás Sopronban’; cf. Nóra G. Etényi, ‘A 17. századi soproni országgyűlések a korabeli német sajtóban’, Soproni Szemle, 54 (2000), 32–53, 46–9. 61 András Komáromy, ‘Berényi György naplója az 1634/35–ik soproni és az 1637/38ik évi pozsonyi országgyűlésekről’, Történelmi Tár (1885), 137; MOL Budapest, N 114, Regnicolaris levéltár, Kovachich Márton György gyűjteménye, Acta diaetalia, vol. 1, fol. 154. 62 Ibid., vol. 1, fol. 112.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Electoral Saxony in the Early Eighteenth Century: Crisis and Cooperation

Adam Perłakowski

The Polish-Saxon union between 1697 and 1763 has been an important topic of historical research for some time now. The nearly seventy years of shared history are, to be sure, reflected in monographs and essays, but many aspects of this relationship remain largely unfamiliar even today. That is hardly surprising, since the Prussocentric historiography of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (one might mention Friedrich Förster, Gustav Droysen and Paul Haake) was highly successful in asserting its construct of the historic mission of Friderician Prussia to unite the German states under Prussian leadership. And there was no room here for a Saxony that, embroiled as it was in the foreign interests of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, moved slowly but surely towards utter decline. There was thus little justification for a greater interest in the history of Poland and Saxony under Augustus II (‘the Strong’) and Augustus III. After 1945, official GDR historiography also saw no need to uncover the secrets of the so-called Saxon period of Poland-Lithuania A few East German historians did address the question of mutual economic relations.1 In Poland too, extremely negative and stubborn stereotypes persist to this day about the ‘Saxon period’ as a ‘dark’ era of backwardness, defeat, disputatious aristocrats and—horror of horrors!—plans for the partition of Poland, which Augustus II allegedly presented to Prussian ministers.2 Thanks to the pioneering work of Józef Andrzej Gierowski and later of Jacek Staszewski we now possess a good deal of important new information about the rule of the two Wettins on the Polish throne, and Gier- owski himself, together with Johannes Kalisch, initiated the first joint conference of Polish and—in those days East—German historians on the Polish-Saxon Union, the proceedings of which were published in

1 J. Reinhold, Polen/Litauen auf den Leipziger Messen des 18. Jahrhunderts (Weimar, 1971); R. Forberger, Die Manufaktur in Sachsen vom Ende des 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1958). 2 Discussed by J. Staszewski in ‛Ostatni “wielki plan” Augusta Mocnego’ Rocznik Gdański, 46 (1986), 45–67. 282 adam perłakowski

1962 under the memorable title Um die polnische Krone.3 Currently, the main centres of ‘Saxon research’ are the universities of Krakow, Toruń | and Warsaw, although they pay scant attention to questions of internal developments in Electoral Saxony, which are usually left to scholars of Saxon regional history. The personal union between electoral Saxony and Poland was no exception in early modern Europe. We need only recall the connections between England and Scotland from 1603 to 1707, between Great Britain and Hanover after 1714, between the lands of the Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs or within the Danish ‘conglomerate state’. Among the great dynasties of the Holy Roman Empire, these monarchical unions were also generally associated with the striving for higher status, such as was pursued in the second half of the seventeenth century, apart from the Wettins and Guelphs, above all by the Hohenzollerns and—less successfully with their repeated candidatures for the Polish crown—the Wittelsbachs.4 It is by no means inconceivable that the union between Poland and Saxony might have had very far-reaching consequences indeed, in particular a strengthening of the military potential of the Rzeczpospolita, which would have meant an upheaval in the prevailing political balance of power in that part of Europe. The tumultuous events of the electoral diet of 1697 and the subsequent election of the Saxon Elector Frederick Augustus I as king of Poland could already have provided hints of the less than idyllic and tranquil atmosphere of his future regency.5 The Wettin’s only serious rival, François-Louis de Bourbon, prince de Conti, was in no hurry to appear in Poland-Lithuania, despite the support of a large portion of the aristocracy. Frederick Augustus I exploited this circumstance and had himself crowned king of Poland—under the name Augustus II, following Polish nomenclature— in the cathedral on Wawel Hill in Cracow. The country was soon inter- nally pacified as well. The rival factions were mollified at the sejm of 1699,

3 J. Kalisch and J. Gierowski (ed.), Um die polnische Krone: Sachsen und Polen während des Nordischen Kriegs, 1700–21 (Berlin, 1962). 4 Cf., e.g., Heinz Duchhardt (ed.), Der Herrscher in der Doppelpflicht. Europäische Fürsten und ihre beiden Throne (Mainz, 1997); Thomas Fröschl (ed.), Föderationsmodelle und Uni- onsstrukturen. Über Staatenverbindungen in der frühen Neuzeit vom 15. zum 18. Jahrhundert (Vienna, 1994); Joachim Bahlcke, ‛Unionsstrukturen und Föderationsmodelle. Übernatio- nale Gemeinsamkeiten im Osten des ständischen Europa. Anmerkungen zu vergleichenden Ansätzen über das frühneuzeitliche Ostmitteleuropa’, in Comparativ. Leipziger Beiträge zur Universalgeschichte und vergleichenden Gesellschaftsforschung, 5 (1998), 57–73. 5 J. Staszewski, ‛Elekcja 1697 roku’, Acta Universitatis Nicolai Copernici, Nauki Humanistyczno-Społeczne, Historia, 28 (1993), 73–92. the polish-lithuanian commonwealth and electoral saxony 283 and even the previous pillar of opposition to Frederick Augustus, Primas Michał Radziejowski, expressed support for the new monarch.6 Another factor should be noted in connection with the election and coronation of Augustus II. The Saxon ruler was a Protestant, one of the leading Protestants in the Holy Roman Empire to boot, while Polish law required the king to be a Catholic. Any other solution was out of the question. Naturally, the elector’s conversion was sure to be negatively received in Protestant Germany, but this was the price that Frederick Augustus I had to pay for the Polish crown.7 Augustus the Strong’s subjects viewed his conversion to Catholicism with reluctance and worry about the continued existence of their tradition-rich Lutheran state church. From that time forward, the Saxon estates demanded regular confirmation of their confessional rights from the elector.8 Augustus’s conversion would also have serious consequences for the imperial diet and thus for the constitutional system of the Holy Roman Empire more generally, however: electoral Sax- ony had to relinquish leadership of the imperial diet’s Corpus Evangelico- rum, and Brandenburg-Prussia was all too happy to take its place. Augustus II could now begin to realize his extensive plans, and they were very ambitious indeed. Was his ultimate objective the crown of the Holy Roman Empire? It is impossible to say with absolute certainty. In 1699 with the treaty of Karlowitz he regained the fortress of Kamieniec- Podolsk (Kamieniec Podolski, present-day Kamyanets-Podilski, Ukraine) for the aristocratic republic, together with Podolia, thus attaining an important diplomatic victory. Above all, though, this success fired the public imagination in Poland-Lithuania: Kamieniec became the symbol par excellence of the humiliation and abasement of the Rzeczpospolita nearly three decades before in the ignominious peace of Buczacz (1672). Augustus II planned to attack Sweden, recapture Livonia, and turn it into a hereditary possession of the Wettins. The king had also pledged to fight for Livonia in his Wahlkapitulation or electoral capitulation—the so-called pacta conventa—which certainly provided some justification for the dynamism of his politics in this regard. The chances of success

6 B. Dybaś, ‛Sejm pacyfikacyjny 1699’, Roczniki Towarzystwa Naukowego w Toruniu, 84, pt 2 (1989). 7 E. Hinrichs, Fürsten und Mächte. Zum problem des europäischen Absolutismus (Göt- tingen, 2000), 83. 8 J.A. Gierowski, ‛The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the XVIIIth Century. From Anarchy to Well-Organised State’, Polska Akademia Umiejętności. Rozprawy Wydziału Historyczno-Filozoficznego Ogólnego zbioru, 82 (1996), 67. 284 adam perłakowski in a potential engagement with Sweden were quite substantial. Augus- tus’ powerful, well-equipped, well-drilled and above all large army (some 20,000 strong) appeared to guarantee a positive outcome. The young and inexperienced Swedish king Charles XII hardly inspired respect, and it was difficult to imagine that any of the allies would lose much sleep over him. Augustus II did, however, have to convince his new ‘subjects’—the Polish szlachta—of the point of fighting the war. This was a difficult undertaking, since wars of aggression were roundly rejected in the political culture of the aristocratic ‘state citizens’ as a dangerous catastrophe. For precisely this reason, electoral Saxony alone was an official participant in the early years of the Great Northern War. International support for the plans of Augustus II was also more than satisfactory. In 1698 he met with the young Tsar Peter I in Rawa Ruska, where the idea of a joint attack on Sweden was born amidst lavish festivities and plenty of alcohol.9 Denmark soon joined the Polish-Russian coalition. The Viennese court, while not offering official support, could at least be counted on for benevolent neutrality. It seems appropriate at this juncture briefly to mention the prerogatives that Augustus the Strong enjoyed as elector in his hereditary home territory, Albertine Saxony. It goes without saying that these prerogatives were broader and farther-reaching than those he could claim in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. But can we speak of absolutist rule here? Let us put aside for the moment the fact that the concept of absolutism is under close scrutiny from many European historians nowadays. The institutions set up during this phase in Electoral Saxony, such as the general military commissariat (Militärgeneralkommissariat), founded in 1684, or the military privy council (Geheimes Militärkollegium), at any rate, did not expand the elector’s power. J.A. Gierowski has correctly pointed out that in Brandenburg-Prussia a completely different tendency (in the development of the bureaucracy) was decisive for strengthening Frideri- cian personal rule.10 In Saxony there was an opposition to the electoral government (not, to be sure, as well organised as the Polish one) dominated by the middle classes, who for example opposed the introduction of the excise in 1703.11 The nobility of the electorate, in contrast, had influence over the most important decisions of state through their participa-

9 K. Czok, August der Starke und seine Zeit. Kurfürst von Sachsen, König von Polen (4th edn, Leipzig 2004), 59. 10 J.A. Gierowski, ‘Rzeczpospolita w dobie złotej wolności, 1648–1763’, in Wielka Historia Polski, ed. St. Grodziski et al. (Cracow, 2001), 223–4. 11 Czok, August der Starke, 62–3. the polish-lithuanian commonwealth and electoral saxony 285 tion in the Saxon diet, where they had a voice in budgetary and military questions. The capable and well-developed administrative apparatus, whose members formed a sort of separate social stratum with their own titles and grades, played a central role. Naturally, the nobility formed the basis of this administration. The Privy Council (Geheimer Rat) established in the sixteenth century had outstanding importance as advisor to the elector. By the seventeenth century, through the concrete structure of the bureaucracy, its councillors already decided in practice on the awarding of offices. The elector himself was quite adept at manoeuvring in this at first glance complicated bureaucratic network. Immediately following his coronation as king of Poland he appointed men devoted to him to central offices (lord marshal, lord treasurer),12 thus ensuring their loyalty during those periods when he was absent from the country. * Meanwhile, the beginning of the Great Northern War proved a complete disappointment for both electoral Saxony and the Polish aristocratic republic. Augustus II had woefully underestimated Sweden’s military potential. To be sure, the accord signed in Warsaw on 14 August 1699 between Augustus and the Livonian estates guaranteed mutual support— the Livonians had officially requested the Polish king’s aid against Swed- ish attacks—but developments at the front revealed the weakness of the king’s grand plans.13 Charles XII quickly defeated the coalition between Moscow and Denmark, drove the Saxons from Livonia, entered the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (although it was not officially involved in the war), crushed the Polish units at the battle of Kliszow (1702), and ultimately precipitated the deposing of Augustus II. Stanislaus Leszczyński was proclaimed the new pretender to the throne ‘by the grace of the Swedes’. A deep political rift developed in aristocratic society, with a majority (particularly the nobility of Greater Poland) supporting the new ruler, while a loyalist camp (the confederation of San- domierz) stood by Augustus. Thus the Commonwealth was compelled to enter the conflict which occurred in 1704 as a result of the coalition treaty of Narva between Poland and Russia. Saxony and the Rzeczpospolita now joined forces against the common enemy. The years that followed, however, proved that military

12 J. Staszewski, August II Mocny (Wrocław etc., 1998), 72. 13 R. Groß, Geschichte Sachsens (Leipzig, 2001), 130. 286 adam perłakowski co-operation between Poland and Saxony could not prevent the disaster that would ensue with the Swedish invasion of electoral Saxony in September 1706. Saxony was occupied by Sweden for several years, and the land was ruthlessly exploited financially. The research of Józef Leszczyński shows clearly that the growing economic pressures intensified anger against the king-elector, who was held responsible for the situation particularly among the citizens of Upper Lusatia.14 To that extent one can proceed from virtually the same scenario as in the Common- wealth, where the ‘aristocratic fraternity’ accused Augustus II of dragging them into this ‘Swedish adventure’. The costs of the Swedish occupation of electoral Saxony have been estimated at over 36 million Reichstaler. This came in addition to the 1706 treaty of Altranstädt’s requirement that Augustus renounce the Polish throne. The treaty’s conditions were rejected by the pro-Wettin camp of the Polish-Lithuanian aristocracy concentrated within the confederation of Sandomierz, who continued to support Augustus II and successfully resisted Russia’s growing influence in the Polish territories.15 The turnaround came in 1709. The Swedish defeat at Poltava (in so- called right-bank Ukraine) ushered in the end of Swedish dominance in the Commonwealth. Leszczyński’s party also collapsed almost immediately.16 Augustus II declared the conditions of the Treaty of Altranstädt null and void, but the restoration of his power cost him dearly. The price was an alliance with Russia, the 1709 peace of Thorn. From that time on, the influence of Peter I in Polish internal affairs grew, so that by the middle of the eighteenth century signs of a permanent Russian protectorate had become evident. The Polish economy also paid a high price, since the war had ruined it utterly. In contrast to the Commonwealth, Saxony was able to rebuild its economic potential relatively quickly. Ten years of war, however, had permanently weakened the political position of electoral Saxony to the advantage of Brandenburg-Prussia, which had been working patiently and constantly to expand the foundations of its power. Important changes occurred in domestic policy in Saxony. Augustus II succeeded in restricting the significance of the Privy Council in favour of

14 J. Leszczyński, ‛Die Oberlausitz in den ersten Jahren des Nordischen Krieges, 1700–9’, in Um die polnische Krone, ed. Kalisch and Gierowski, 70–94. 15 A. Kamiński, Konfederacja sandomierska wobec Rosji w okresie poaltransztadzkim, 1706–9 (Wrocław etc., 1969). 16 J. Porazinski, Epiphania Poloniae. Orientacje i postawy polityczne szlachty polskiej w dobie wielkiej wojny północnej, 1702–10 (Toruń, 1999), 147–8. the polish-lithuanian commonwealth and electoral saxony 287 the Privy Cabinet (Geheimes Kabinett), which he established on 1 July 1706. The latter was a central agency with officials appointed by and wholly dependent on the elector.17 Unlike electoral Saxony, Poland experienced no profound reform of the system of government. During the war, Augustus II had depended mainly on the institution of the so-called senatorial council (senatus consilia), which had its legal basis in the Henrician Articles (articuli henriciani) of 1573. An important role also fell to the ministers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who were appointed for life according to the principle of parity: the chancellors, field commanders (hetmani) and treasurers, who were responsible, respectively, for foreign policy, the army and the state treasury. There were no institutions, however, that were capable of strengthening royal power in the long term. This resulted in part from the specific nature of the constitutional structure of the Commonwealth, in which a fragile equilibrium existed between the monarch and the estates, the breakdown of which could easily end in civil war. A segment of aristocratic society was well aware that changing the form of government was unavoidable if Poland wished to regain its former significance in European politics. Stanisław Dunin Karwicki expressed the reformers’ programme most concisely in his work De ordinanda Republica. King Augustus II, for his part, sought to introduce the Saxon model of an ‘efficient state’.18 He made a grave error, however, in relying on the Saxon army to bolster his power—not, mind you, to implement absolutism!—since this met with the firm disapproval of the szlachta, who thereupon joined together in the confederation of Tarnogrod in 1715.19 The conflict ended in 1716 with the signing of an agreement between the king and the confederates, which was ratified at the so-called ‘Silent Diet’ of 1717. This diet, which was crucially important to the development of the Polish constitution in the eighteenth century above all because of its financial and military reforms, also passed some regulations governing

17 J. Dürichen, Geheimes Kabinett und Geheimer Rat unter der Regierung Augusts des Starken in den Jahren 1704–20 (Dresden, 1930). 18 A. Sulima-Kamiński, Historia Rzeczypospolitej Wielu Narodów, 1505–1795 (Lublin, 2000), 169. 19 More on the prelude to the confederation of Tarnogród: J. Gierowski, Między saskim absolutyzmem a złotą wolnością. Z dziejów wewnętrznych Rzeczypospolitej w latach 1712–15 (Wrocław, 1953). On the plans to strengthen royal government and Flemming’s role in them: id., ‘Personal- oder Realunion? Zur Geschichte der polnisch–sächsischen Beziehun- gen nach Poltawa’, in Um die polnische Krone, ed. Kalisch and Gierowski (Berlin, 1962), 254–91. 288 adam perłakowski the concrete functioning of the Polish–Saxon Union. Henceforth, the king could only spend time outside the Commonwealth with the consent of the diet and only for a specified period. The Saxon army had to leave Polish territory. The king was to govern exclusively through the royal Polish and Lithuanian authorities, while Saxon officials had no authority whatsoever in Polish affairs. These principles were actually observed, all the more so because the Polish aristocracy reacted allergically to any form of Saxon intervention in the republic’s internal affairs. It is only unfortunate that similarly severe measures were not taken against Russia’s representatives at the Polish court (led by Grigorij Dolgoruki), who exploited the tensions between the king and his subjects to further the interests of Peter I. Augustus II recognized this threat to Poland’s sovereign politics and made every effort to limit the activities of Russia, whose soldiers remained stationed in the Polish and Lithuanian voivodeships for quite some time. When the Warsaw accord of 1716 was written, Dolgoruki was prevented from influencing the document’s final contents,20 but Russia became the guarantor of the agreements between the king and his subjects. In foreign policy too, Augustus II increasingly sought independence from Russian control, of which the signing of the treaty of friendship with France in 171421 or the attempt to form an anti-Russian and anti-Prussian coalition between the Holy Roman Empire, Britain, Hanover and Saxony in 1718–19 may serve as examples. The Commonwealth was also supposed to join this coalition. The 1719 marriage of the young electoral prince Fred- erick Augustus II to Joseph II’s daughter Maria Josepha was also intended to establish closer ties to the Viennese court.22 It is worth pointing to two aspects here. First, during this phase Augustus II had a majority of the aristocracy on his side for a change, and second, the diplomatic initia- tive—which was also in the Commonwealth’s interest—was controlled exclusively from Saxony. Augustus II’s actions so unnerved the Russian diplomats that they sent panic-stricken reports to Peter I, informing him of the monarch’s enormous expansion of power in Poland. Initial changes

20 J.A. Gierowski, ‘ “Opisanie” urzędów centralnych przez konfederatów tarnogrodz- kich’, in O naprawę Rzeczypospolitej XVII–XVIII w. Prace ofiarowane W. Czaplińskiemu w 60 rocznicę urodzin, ed. Gierowski et al. (Warsaw, 1965), 193–211; id., ‘Wokół mediacji w traktacie warszawskim 1716 roku’, Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Prace Historyczne, 26 (1969), 57–68. 21 J.A. Gierowski, Traktat przyjaźni polski z Francją w 1714 r. Studium z dziejów dyplomacji (Warsaw, 1965). 22 K. Czok, ‛Zur Neubewertung der sächsisch–polnischen Union, 1697–1763, in Polen und Sachsen. Zwischen Nähe und Distanz= Dresdner Hefte, 15, 2 (1997), 13. the polish-lithuanian commonwealth and electoral saxony 289 on the political stage (among them the death of Charles XII and a gradual withdrawal of the Russian troops) meant that this coalition did not fulfil the hopes placed in it.23 The concepts that aimed to strengthen Saxony and Poland’s international position were doomed to failure. When the system of the European pentarchy (France, England, Austria, Prussia and Russia) emerged between 1715 and 1721, there was no longer a place in it for the Polish-Saxon state.24 The 1721 peace of Nystad, in the signing of which the Commonwealth did not participate, occurred simultaneously with a phenomenon known to a segment of Polish historians as the ‘mild government’ of Augustus the Strong. The monarch realized that under the specific political constella- tion prevailing in Poland he had no hope of initiating a change in the constitutional order; for that reason he was dependent on co-operation with the political elite of the Rzeczpospolita. This co-operation was intended to produce measurable results, chief among them, naturally, the election of the Wettin heir, Electoral Prince Frederick Augustus II, as king. In the second decade of the eighteenth century, Augustus the Strong devoted all of his energies to this plan.25 That said, it appears almost paradoxical that we know so much more nowadays about the economic and cultural ties between the two states. The current state of research permits us to lay out key aspects of commercial exchange or courtly life.26 The ideas of mercantilism—or more precisely, cameralism—found emulators in the Polish crown territories and Lithuania. An example of a joint Polish-Lithuanian-Saxon institution was the treasury court for the royal domains [königliche Ökonomien]

23 J.A. Gierowski, ‘Dyplomacja polska doby saskiej, 1699–1763, in Historia dyplomacji polskiej. Vol. II: 1572–1795, ed. Z. Wójcik (Warsaw, 1982), 372. On the parliamentary stryggle over the ratification of the Vienna treaty, cf. U. Kosińska, Sejm 1719–20 a sprawa ratyfika- cji traktatu wiedeńskiego (Warsaw, 2003), though this work must betreated with caution because of its numerous errors and oversimplifications. 24 H. Schilling, Höfe und Allianzen. Deutschland 1648–1763, (Berlin, 1998), 281. 25 M. Markiewicz, Historia Polski, 1492–1795 (Cracow, 2004), 617–18. 26 R. Forberger, ‛Zur wirtschaftgeschichtlichen Neueinschätzung der sächsisch— polnischen Union’, in Um die polnische Krone, ed.. Kalisch and Gierowski, 208–53; A. Perłakowski, ‛Zwei Staaten eine Chance? Die sächsisch–polnischen Wirtschaftsbe- ziehungen in der Zeit der Personalunion’, Biuletin der Polnischen Historischen Mission, 4 (2006); J. Staszewski, Polacy w osiemnastowiecznym Dreźnie (Wrocław etc., 1986); id., ‛War- szawa w czasach saskich’, in „Jak Polskę przemienić w kraj kwitnący . . .“. Szkice i studia z czasów saskich = Rozprawy i Materiały Ośrodka Badań Naukowych im. Kętrzyńskiego w Olsz- tynie, 168 (1997), 267–74; W. May, ‛Das sächsische Bauwesen unter August II. und August III. in Polen’, in Polen und Sachsen, 17–26. 290 adam perłakowski established in 1710.27 In contrast, we know little or nothing about political relations in this period, which was such a decisive one for both states. There is no question that electoral-Saxon diplomacy also represented the interests of the Commonwealth. This was only too understandable, since the elector of Saxony was also the king of Poland. And that, it seems, was the sum total of the mutual, in the strict sense political, contacts between the two countries. No concept of ‘bilateral relations’ between Poland and Saxony existed in this period. Only the monarch had a right to such contacts. Nowhere did the Polish diet, the senatorial council or the ministries co-operate with their counterparts in electoral Saxony. Moreover, a virtual chasm opened up between them in matters of state interest and reason of state. In the Commonwealth, at least theoretically, officials performed their tasks according to the principle of duty to country and the common good. When it came to their official competences, however, they were not subject to the monarch—in contrast to Saxon state functionaries. A reciprocal rapprochement was doubtless rendered more difficult by the Polish conviction that, while the elector was a hereditary monarch, he was constitutionally subordinate to the emperor. The republic, meanwhile, was ruled by a sovereign monarch, who moreover had been freely elected according to the will of the aristocratic ‘state citizens’ who gathered on the field where elections were held. Officials and courtiers from Saxony were viewed with suspicion, but also with a sense of superiority, which prevented them from appearing as equal partners. Contacts between the elites of the two countries had a fundamentally private character, which naturally did not exclude the possibility of coordinating certain political projects through unofficial channels. * Was this a typical manifestation of so-called composite monarchy, a model introduced into the literature by Helmut G. Koenigsberger,28 John H. Elliott29 and also John Robertson,30 or perhaps of a ‘confederation’? Based on the current state of research, it is difficult to answer this ques-

27 More in E. Stańczak, Kamera saska za Augusta III (Warsaw, 1973). 28 H.G. Koenigsberger, ‘Dominium Regale or Dominium Politicum et Regale. Monar- chies and Parliaments in Early Modern Europe’, in his Politicans and Virtuosi. Essays in Early Modern History (London, 1986), 1–25. 29 J.H. Elliott, ‘A Europe of Composite Monarchies’, Past and Present, 137 (1992), 48–71. 30 J. Robertson, ‘Empire and Union: Two Concepts of the Early Modern European Poli- tical Order’ in A Union for Empire. Political thought and the British Union of 1707, ed. Robert- son (Cambridge, 1995) 3–36. the polish-lithuanian commonwealth and electoral saxony 291 tion. We thus need broader-based studies on the problem of political relationships between the elites of the two countries. A recent contribution by the German historian Wieland Held represents a promising approach to this issue.31 To this day, the personal union between the Polish-Lithuanian Com- monwealth and electoral Saxony elicits lively debates among historians. This union was by no means exceptional in Europe: in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries several states were connected in the person of their ruler (the Habsburg possessions, England, Scotland and later Hanover, among others). The Polish-Saxon Union, however, could be called a ‘union of missed opportunities’. The attempt to establish a joint state, which could have decided the future fate of this part of Europe, failed. Involvement in the Great Northern War not only brought terrible destruction and a profound economic crisis, but also prevented an intellectual rapprochement between the elites of Poland-Lithuania and Saxony. Mutual distrust and the distance that prevailed in relations during the first twenty years of the eighteenth century also affected the relationship between the two countries in the decades that followed. In the absence of joint politics on the European stage, Poland and Saxony inexorably fell under the influence of the rising Russian and Prussian power blocs.

31 W. Held, ‛Der sächsische Adel in seiner Haltung zur sächsisch-polnischen Verbindung und zu Polen’, in Sachsen und Polen zwischen 1697 und 1763. Beiträge der wissenschaftlichen Konferenz vom 26. bis 28. Juni 1997 in Dresden (Dresden, 1998), 27–47.

The Northern Periphery: German Cultural Influences on the Danish-Norwegian Kingdom during the Enlightenment

Thomas Munck

Concepts of national and cultural identity were not prominent in Enlight- enment debate until late in the century—and even then more often represented a romantic ideal rather than any specific set of values.1 In most parts of Europe there was a poor fit between state jurisdictions on the one hand, and cultural, linguistic, or regional allegiances on the other. The Danish-Norwegian kingdom was no exception, and, as in other conglomerate states (such as the Habsburg lands), the government understandably either ignored or played down tendencies that might undermine cohesiveness within the whole state. Yet questions of identity, loyalty, and collective allegiance were important in all early modern societies, and indispensable for the maintenance of civil society. They had surfaced with particular insistence in central and northern Europe from the time of the Reformation onwards. In Denmark the creation of a new absolute monarchy from 1660 required a deliberate reinforcement of loyalty to the ruling family and to the Lutheran faith which it upheld—an imposed consensus which seems to have fulfilled its purpose remarkably successfully for at least a century. From the 1760s onwards, however, challenges emerged, not just from the new empirical study of the fabric of human society and institutions which was one of the common aspects of Enlight- enment all over Europe and in the American colonies, but also because

1 The literature on the emergence of nationalism is large, but much of it is social- science oriented and focused on the period since 1800. For historians, a good starting-point is A.D. Smith, Nationalism (Cambridge, 2001). Landmarks for the early modern period include D.A. Bell, The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680–1800 (Cam- bridge, MA, 2001); L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (London, 1992); R. von Friedeburg (ed.), ‘Patria’ und ‘Patrioten’ vor dem Patriotismus: Pflichten, Rechte, Glauben und die Rekonfigurierung europäischer Gemeinwesen im 17. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 2005); C. Kidd, British Identities before Nationalism: Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World, 1600–1800 (Cambridge, 1999); G. Lind, ‘Europæisering i middelalderen og nyere tid: en komparativ analyse med norden i fokus’, Historisk Tidsskrift [Copenhagen], 103 (2003), 1–52; E. Rechniewski, ‘References to National Character in the Encyclopédie’, Studies on Vol- taire and the Eighteenth Century, 2003, no.12, 221–37; P. Sahlins, Unnaturally French: Foreign Citizens in the Old Regime and After (Ithaca, 2004). 294 thomas munck of features unique to the northern periphery. In contrast to Sweden (to which we shall return), Denmark was situated precariously at the intersection of two distinct and in some respects divergent worlds: that of the increasingly dynamic north German culture on the one hand, and, on the other, the more traditional and predominantly community-based culture of much of the rest of Scandinavia. Two major components of collective identity were clearly visible in early modern Scandinavia, over and above the obvious ones of the physical environment (family and household, parish community, religion, landscape, social position, and gender). One of these was the long-standing rivalry between the strong personalized monarchies which had split Scan- dinavia into two from 1523, with competing focal points in Copenhagen and Stockholm. In effect two composite states had been created, with the Swedish-Finnish one constricted first by the Danish-Norwegian state (which until 1660 controlled all access from the Baltic to the international maritime trading network), then increasingly by the emergent power of Russia to the east. It is important to note, for the purposes of this discussion, that the southern perimeters of both monarchies remained relatively open and permeable: a strong shared religious consensus, coupled with significant family links amongst the elite in both monarchies, reinforced the physical links provided by those north German territories which were both part of the Holy Roman Empire and subject to the sovereignty of either the Danish or the Swedish monarchy. Despite a shared past history and close cultural links, however, the two Scandinavian monarchies were nearly invariably hostile towards each other—particularly so after the disasters of the early half of the seventeenth century. Christian IV and Gustav Adolph in the 1620s in effect locked the two monarchies into perpetual rivalry, where all the tools of early modern political propaganda were used: artistic patronage, state-sponsored creation of historical myth, and full exploitation of all diplomatic channels to emphasize the tension.2 Although the chosen grounds for conflict changed under different monarchs (especially after the end of the Thirty Years War, and again in

2 K. Skovgaard-Petersen, Historiography at the Court of Christian IV, 1588–1648 (Copen- hagen, 2002); H.D. Schepelern and U. Houkjær, The Kronborg Series: King Christian IV and his Pictures of Early Danish History (Copenhagen, 1988); J.R. Paas, The German Politi- cal Broadsheet, 1600–1700, (8 vols, Wiesbaden, 1985–2005), esp. iv (1622–9). Early concepts of national identity in the Danish elite are discussed in H. Ilsøe, ‘Danskerne og deres fædreland: holdninger og opfattelser ca.1550–1700’, in Dansk Identitetshistorie, ed. O. Feld- bæk (4 vols, Copenhagen, 1991–2), i.27–88. german cultural influences 295 the 1670s), it had become sufficiently engrained in official ideologies that the extinction of the direct Vasa line in 1718 did not lead to any sudden improvement in Danish–Swedish relations. The other distinctive component of identity was the group of languages which, Finnish apart, allowed (as they still do allow) fairly easy communication between individuals originating from opposite ends of the geographically huge Scandinavian peninsulas and islands. According to the first full census of 1769, the Danish king had three Danish and three Nor- wegian subjects for every two German-speaking ones. Copenhagen was by far the largest city (reaching a population of 100,000 around 1800), but Altona had 18,000 and Flensburg 7000, ahead of the second-largest Dan- ish-speaking city, Odense. Hamburg itself, adjacent to Altona on the Elbe, also served as a major gateway to the Danish-Norwegian kingdom. Sig- nificantly, German remained the official command-language in the Dan- ish army until 1773, and because many of the landed elite families had possessions on both sides of the linguistic frontier, they regarded themselves as firmly connected to both. It is clear that German was reasonably well understood in many parts of Denmark (notably in Jutland and in Copenhagen itself).3 Linguistic usage in Norway was also composite, with a number of distinctive dialects competing with Danish (and a bit of Dutch or German) in daily usage. Although the predominant language of the central administration (if not always the court) remained Danish,4 the whole state was thus genuinely multilingual. It is even possible to argue that it was multicultural, because of the contrasts between north and south—between Copenhagen and Altona on the one hand, and Bergen or Oslo on the other, or between the increasingly seigneur-dominated rural

3 V. Winge, ‘Dansk og tysk i 1700–tallet’, in Dansk Identitetshistorie, ed. Feldbæk, i.89– 110, emphasizes that although contemporaries noted the overlap between (and occasional mixing of) commonly used languages in eighteenth-century Denmark, this was seen as entertaining rather than irritating, and German appears not to have been regarded as a cultural threat. 4 Danish remained the standard language in the records of domestic affairs (for example in the Danske Kancelli, and in the Rentekammer), as well as in the judicial system; naturally, the Tyske Kancelli (foreign affairs) used German and other languages. Outside government circles, we might note that in August 1760 the journal Kiøbenhavnske Nye Tidender om lærde Sager devoted a special supplement to ‘patriotic thoughts on the Dan- ish language’, noting that the growing literature in Danish was clearly strengthening the language, but calling for a grammar book and a dictionary comparable to those being published for other European languages. A few years later, in 1767, the same journal nevertheless commented on the insufficient growth in publications in Danish, explaining it in terms of the competition from foreign-language reading accessible to even the ‘unstudied’ (163–6). 296 thomas munck society of southern Denmark and the remote self-governing villages and fishing communities of rural Norway (not to mention the very isolated settlements in the Faeroes, Iceland, and Greenland). This distinctive cultural mosaic, so different from the national identities constructed in more modern times, is key to understanding the complex relationships between Denmark and the Holy Roman Empire during the period of the Enlightenment, and in particular the tensions which erupted in Copenhagen after 1770. Danish historians, perhaps still influenced by the national disasters of 1864–1945, have regarded the outbursts of anti- German sentiment in Copenhagen in 1776 and 1789 as almost axiomatic evidence of national self-expression. However, a critical re-examination of this consensus is long overdue. This paper will discuss the problems associated with the conflicting concepts of ‘national identity’ in Den- mark up to the 1790s, and will question whether the culminating outburst known to Danes as Tyskerfejden (the ‘German feud’) in 1789 marked a real cultural watershed. Because of the prominence of German influences on Denmark, a preliminary attempt will also be made to draw comparisons with the somewhat more detached Sweden, in order to highlight the real changes in collective identities and print cultures observable in the two kingdoms.

The Danish Language and the Reaction to Struensee

By the mid-eighteenth century, Danish had developed from a functional and devotional language into something with real creative and literary potential. Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754) is usually regarded as pivotal in this process, not least in providing Copenhagen with the kind of literary enter- tainment (in print and above all on stage) that was attracting growing audiences in most European cities. Holberg was Norwegian, and as professor at the very conservative Copenhagen University he was no doubt required to curtail his enthusiasm for the wider European Enlightenment, just as he would have had to abandon any thought either of new teaching methods or of the use of Danish in his formal duties. His independent publications, however, reveal a mixture of languages and imaginative forms of expression which, typically for his age, were contingent both on the intended readership and the possible political repercussions. Thus he used Danish as well as Latin for some of his influential historical and topographical writings from the 1720s onwards, and Latin alone for the first (anonymous) version of the book that gained him a wide European german cultural influences 297 reputation, his satirical Journey by Niels Klimt to the World Underground (1741). His extensive and hugely successful (French-inspired) output for the stage, however, was in informal Danish, and as such probably had the greatest impact both on contemporary use of the language itself, and on perceptions of collective identity. Holberg also contributed to the popular- ity in Denmark of the kind of journal often known as the ‘moral weekly’ (a genre firmly established with Jens Sneedorff’s Patriotic Spectator of 1761). In effect he paved the way for the development of creative writing in Dan- ish, and brought literary interests into much closer contact with Euro- pean-wide trends. More broadly, however, he also helped to foster a lively ‘public’ engagement with contemporary social issues amongst the next generation of writers,5 leading to a gradual recognition that tradition and obedience were not immutable. A range of new topics and ideas gradually surfaced, mostly of a very practical nature: commentaries and essays on economic issues in serial publications such as Danmarks og Norges Oecon- omiske Magazin (1757–64), more serious discussion of history and politics in the teaching of Sneedorff and others at the elite academy at Sorø, and a widespread interest (from the late 1750s onwards) in the particulars of agrarian reform and its social repercussions. All involved more extensive use of print, of course; but more important, all of these interests brought Denmark-Norway into closer contact with the European Enlightenment, and especially with current trends in the northern German lands. The rapidly growing impact of print culture on the ‘public sphere’ in eighteenth-century Copenhagen (and to a much lesser extent the main provincial towns) has become clear in recent research.6 Some of the more specific questions regarding the use of print, however, still await detailed research: notably the impact of printing on Danish itself, as a language; the ability of some Copenhagen printers to deliver texts in significant alternative languages such as German; and the related question of the extent to

5 For a general survey in English, see P.M. Mitchell, ‘The Age of Enlightenment’, in A History of Danish Literature, ed. S.H. Rossel (Lincoln, NE, 1992), 121–66. 6 T. Kjærgaard, ‘The Rise of the Press and Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century Den- mark-Norway’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 14 (1989), 215–30; H. Ilsøe, Bogtrykkerne i København og deres virksomhed, ca.1500–1810 (Copenhagen, 1992); H. Horstbøll, Menig mands medie: det folkelige bogtryk i Danmark, 1500–1840 (Copenhagen, 1999); T. Munck, ‘Translating Enlightenment: European Influences and Danish Perceptions of Identity in the Press in the Later Eighteenth Eentury’, in Northern Antiquities and National Identities: Perceptions of Denmark and the North in the Eighteenth Century, ed. K. Haakonssen and H. Horstbøll (Copenhagen, 2008), 227–50. For a fuller discussion of changing patterns of reading, see id., ‘Literacy, Educational Reform and the Use of Print in Eighteenth-Century Denmark’, European History Quarterly, 34 (2004), 275–303. 298 thomas munck which north-German publishers (for example in Hamburg) either deliberately aimed at the Danish market, or developed partnerships and joint imprints with publishers in Copenhagen in order to maximize their sales. The data which might be used to help answer these questions is not yet available in reliable form,7 so considerable caution is needed at this stage in drawing preliminary conclusions. Nevertheless it is clear that, although a few French-language texts were published in Copenhagen, it was never the dominant modern foreign language amongst the printers in the city: the output in German was both larger and more durable. Throughout the century, the number of titles produced in Copenhagen in German did not fall very far short of the number in Latin; but like Latin, German benefited from none of the surge apparent in Danish output from the 1740s onwards, and ended up representing less than 10 per cent of total output. After 1763, the number of new German titles published every year with a Copenhagen imprint was normally in the range 10–25, and significantly, this number shows little sign of decline even in the 1790s. We might also remind ourselves that the German poet Klopstock, who resided in Copen- hagen on a court pension from 1751 to 1770, did not even have his most important work translated into Danish:8 his large-scale religious epic, Der Messias, was read in the original by a group of bilingual literati in the capital who also sustained the journal Der Nordische Aufseher (1758–61, edited by Andreas Cramer).9 Despite being an outsider, Klopstock influenced younger writers of Danish poetry and fiction, and his interest in romanti- cized Nordic and Christian mythology had European-wide resonances. As will be clear from the discussion so far, the Danish-Norwegian kingdom was wide open to German cultural influences. However, the relationship did not remain altogether harmonious. The challenge of reconciling different identities within a conglomerate state was a recurrent motif

7 The older printed listing of Danish publications, Bibliotheca Danica (6 vols, Copenha- gen, 1877–1931), does include foreign-language items, but is not in this respect very reliable. However, the current on-line catalogue for the Royal Library in Copenhagen lacks consist- ency and accuracy in the way key information (for example, place of publication, format, language) is recorded, so that selective searches on the data can be misleading. 8 The only volume by Klopstock translated into Danish while he was resident there was Der Tod Adams (1757); both it and Der Messias were translated into English in 1763, and into Swedish from 1789. 9 See also K. Bohnen, ‘Der Kopenhagener Kreis und Der nordische Aufseher’, in Der dänische Gesamtstaat: Kopenhagen, Kiel, Altona, ed. Bohnen and S.Aa. Jørgensen (Tübingen, 1992), 160–79; and U. Goldenbaum, ‘Lessing contra Cramer zum Verhältnis von Glauben und Vernunft: die Grundsatzdebatte zwischen den Litteraturbriefen und dem Nordischen Aufseher’, in Appell an das Publikum, ed. Goldenbaum (2 vols, Berlin, 2004), ii.653–728. german cultural influences 299 in the comedies of Holberg and his contemporaries, and was bound to increase when Enlightenment debate shifted towards greater emphasis on politics and the relationship between the individual and society. For some, such as Tyge Rothe in 1759,10 the potential conflict of interests in a multilingual state could be resolved by marginalizing loyalty to your place of birth in favour of loyalty to the place where you settle and work, in this case to the composite entity which embraced Danes, Norwegians and Holsteiners—a message ideally suited to the elite and fairly cosmopolitan outlook prevailing at court in the last years of Frederick V. The king’s death in 1766, however, led to a serious political problem: the deteriorat- ing mental health of his heir, Christian VII (1766–1808), not only by 1770 made the conduct of politics according to the norms of Danish absolutism virtually impossible, but also inevitably led to destabilising power-struggles at the centre of the state. The short period of political dominance by the north German physician Struensee (1770–2) demonstrated the fragil- ity of Danish absolutism as a political system.11 He rapidly consolidated extraordinary power through his ability to manage the king’s fits; but his peremptory impatience, his lack of understanding of traditional court sen- sitivities, his inability to speak Danish, and above all his increasingly open adulterous liaison with the queen, made him politically vulnerable. It is important to emphasise that Struensee did not so much create a new anti- German resentment, as accelerate the growth of a cultural self-consciousness characteristic of many European language-communities in the later eighteenth century. In these particular circumstances, however, Struensee was a ready-made target for those concerned about the apparent usurpa- tion of power at the centre of the monarchy. His dramatic fall from grace in January 1772, trial and public execution, was accompanied by a public outcry against foreigners which was made all the more visible because

10 Tanker om Kiærlighed til Fædernelandet (1759) was the first of a number of publications by Tyge Rothe dealing with historical, cultural and educational aspects of identity and community from a consensus viewpoint. He was a prolific writer (as well as a landowner and government office-holder). 11 The most recent discussions include S. Winkle, Johann Friedrich Struensee: Arzt, Auf- klärer und Staatsmann (Stuttgart, 1989); id., Struensee und die Publizistik (Hamburg, 1992); A. Amdisen, Til nytte og fornøjelse: Johann Friedrich Struensee, 1737–72 (Copenhagen, 2002). These have helped put Struensee’s reforms in a more positive light than that provided in older Danish publications. See also the discussion of Struensee in John Christian Laursen, ‘Humanism vs. Cynicism: Cosmopolitan Culture and National Identity in Eighteenth- Century Denmark’, in Northern Antiquities and National Identities, ed. Haakonssen and Horstbøll, 145–62. 300 thomas munck

Struensee himself had abolished the requirements of pre-publication censorship throughout the kingdom in September 1770.12 The twelve-year regency (1772–84) which followed the fall of Struen- see has been consistently neglected in Danish research. We know that those most influential in the government, including the dowager queen and some of the old aristocracy, exploited the popular reaction against Struensee, and against German influences generally, in order to gain wider acceptance for their questionable regency. The law on indigenous rights (1776), which restricted future government appointments to those who had been born in the territories under Danish sovereignty (German speakers therefore essentially from Schleswig or Holstein only), has been widely regarded as a measure against foreigners in general, and Germans from the rest of the Empire in particular. It certainly broke with Tyge Rothe’s broad concept of loyalty to the conglomerate state, in favour of the very different appeal already made for example by Eiler Hagerup, in his Brev om Kierlighed til Fædrenelandet (1767), calling for a new patriotic identity defined narrowly by place of birth. Hagerup’s call had in 1767 been directed primarily against the circle around J.H.E. Bernstorff, and at the time of publication could be regarded as a typical piece of factionalism sponsored by disgruntled members of the old Danish elite who felt they had been pushed aside. With the hindsight of the Struensee period, however, Hagerup’s argument could be regarded as prophetic. There was, in any case, no possible doubt about the narrow Danish instincts of the man who gradually emerged as the real power within the new regency, Ove Høegh Guldberg. As early as 1763, while a young teacher at the elite academy in Sorø, he had criticised the way the Danish language was relegated to secondary status amongst the ruling elite in Denmark.13 Now he was part of a government which was not only tradi- tionalist and cautious, but also seemed decidedly inward-looking. Virtu- ally none of the reform initiatives of the Struensee period were sustained; the only substantive move was a commission on school reforms (1775)

12 On the outpouring of pamphlets against Struensee, and the kind of debate that it generated, see C. Keitsch, Der Fall Struensee: ein Blick in die Skandalpresse des ausgehenden 18. Jahrhunderts (Hamburg, 2000), which takes a more critical look at the public reaction to the fall and trial of Struensee than Winkle (previous note); H. Horstbøll, ‘Trykkefrihedens bogtrykkere og skribenter 1770–73’, Grafiana: Årbog for Danmarks Grafiske Museum, 2001, 9–25; and id., ‘Bolle Willum Luxdorphs samling af trykkefrihedens skrifter 1770–73’, Fund og Forskning i Det Kongelige Biblioteks Samlinger, 44 (2005), 371–412. 13 O. Feldbæk, ‘Fædreland og Indfødsret: 1700–tallets danske identitet’, in Dansk Ident- itetshistorie, ed. Feldbæk, i.111–230, esp. 147f. german cultural influences 301 which significantly recommended improved instruction both in Danish language and in national history. Interest in the early history of Scandi- navia was of long standing, and had met international recognition in the works of Paul Henri Mallet (another foreigner working in Copenhagen in the 1750s). Now Guldberg commissioned no less than two histories of Denmark for school use: one by the respected historian Peter Frederik Suhm (1776), couched in suitable patriotic language where all provocative references to the composite nature of the state had been removed; the other by Ove Malling, Store og gode Handlinger af Danske, Norske og Hol- stenere (1777), even more blatantly mythologizing the Scandinavian past for younger readers. In the context of a tradition-bound absolute monarchy, now requir- ing concealment of the unprecedented constitutional problems created by the king’s worsening mental condition, it is very difficult to establish whether the reaction of the 1770s can really be described as an assertion of ‘national’ identity. Although the press laws of the Struensee years had not been formally rescinded, restrictive amendments (1773) and a few exemplary prosecutions ensured that few authors dared to test the bounds of free expression. There is no doubting the lively celebrations with which the law on indigenous rights of 1776 was greeted across Denmark. But how much of this enthusiasm was merely a dutiful response to government propaganda (the law was promulgated on the king’s birthday, with as much pomp as the regency could muster), how much a reflection of a genuine emergent identity, and how much was the side-effect of xenopho- bic resentment against powerful members of the elite who appeared to have manipulated a weak monarchy, is open to question. To some historians, the law seems to reflect a genuine ‘Danish identity’ indicative of the emergence of a national state.14 However, some of the commonly accepted characteristics of modern nationalism15 were clearly missing: the sense of loyalty to this Danish identity manifestly did not take precedence over other loyalties (for example to the ruling dynasty, or to the Lutheran faith), and above all, there was no recognition of the obvious discrepancy between

14 O. Feldbæk, ‘Fædreland og Indfødsret’, 219–30. See also the resulting discussion with B.E. Jensen, in Historisk Tidsskrift [Copenhagen], 92 (1992), 326–52. It is worth noting that the law of 1776 was implemented by cabinet order, circumventing consultations in the privy council—precisely the kind of procedural shortcut which, in the hands of Struensee, had led to accusations of tyranny. 15 Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism, (Cambridge, 2001), 22 and passim. The use of the term ‘nationalism’, for the later eighteenth century, is inherently problematic: see notably Kidd, British Identities before Nationalism, esp. 1–6. 302 thomas munck enthusiasm for the Danish language and identity on the one hand, and, on the other, maintenance of the more complex collective identity of the conglomerate state in respect of especially the Norwegians and the Hol- steiners. It is particularly striking that, in the timid discussion of reform tolerated by the regency, no official mention of Norwegian demands for cultural autonomy (including a university of their own) was acceptable. One might therefore be tempted to conclude that the law of 1776 was an effective bit of manipulative propaganda, designed to rally the public around a weak monarchy, rather than a response to any coherent sense of ‘national’ identity amongst the mostly apolitical and loyal Danes.

The ‘German Feud’ (Tyskerfejden) of 1789

With the palace coup of 1784, which ousted the entire regency government and created a new ministerial team fronted by the young crown prince, clear legitimacy and stability were restored to national politics. The quite wide-ranging social and agrarian reforms implemented over the next decade have been scrutinized in detail by over a generation of Danish historians.16 What has been less fully analysed is the extent to which the new régime distanced itself from the narrow Danishness of the Guldberg years, either ideologically or in practical politics. A recent study suggests that neither the reaction against Struensee, nor the law of 1776, had had much noticeable impact on the composition of the higher levels of the central bureaucracy, but that there was a gradual decrease in the number of foreigners serving at lower levels over the next decades.17 It is quite likely that a noticeable reduction occurred in the number of foreigners in the army, but the navy is unlikely to have changed much since it had always been predominantly Danish-Norwegian. It is clear that A.P. Bern- storff found himself increasingly at odds with the Guldberg government, until he was forced out of office in 1780: but although it would be tempting to attribute this to his German (Mecklenburg) background (even if he was

16 For overviews in English, see H.A. Barton, Scandinavia in the Revolutionary Era, 1760– 1815 (Minneapolis, 1986), and T. Munck, ‘Absolute Monarchy in Later Eighteenth-Century Denmark: Centralized Reform, Public Expectations and the Copenhagen Press’, in The Historical Journal, 41 (1998), 201–24. 17 E. Gøbel, De styrede rigerne: embedsmændene i den dansk-norske civile centraladmin- istration, 1660–1814 (Odense, 2000), draws his conclusions on the basis of a detailed prosopographical study, but notes (38–42) that the shift in composition of the lower levels of the bureaucracy is a longer-term phenomenon which continues through the Napoleonic period, and may therefore be the result of a number of distinct factors. german cultural influences 303 exempt from the restrictions of 1776 because of prior service), he was in fact ousted primarily because of differences over the conduct of foreign policy. It is of course impossible to know how many outsiders may in the longer run have been deterred from entering Danish service at a higher level, but if there was any workable policy to that effect, it seems to have been forgotten after 1784. Bernstorff himself returned to lead the new government (which he continued to do until his death in 1797), General Heinrich Wilhelm von Huth (military adviser to the crown prince) became privy councillor, and Ernst Schimmelmann was appointed finance minister: all three had been born in German territories outside Danish control, and would by ‘1776’ standards have needed to claim dispensation from the law on the basis of prior service. By contrast, those most directly responsible for working out the details of the reform programme (notably Bang, Colbiørnsen and Reventlow) were unquestionably Danish- or Norwegian- born, but they were all inspired by European-wide (and especially Ger- man cameralist) thinking, and there is no indication that they had any interest in maintaining the law of 1776. There appears to have been no distinctive take on this problem from amongst the most prominent Nor- wegians working in Copenhagen. The Holstein elite, although in other respects very conscious of their special position in the state, had extensive family connections both in the Holy Roman Empire and in Denmark, so were even less likely to draw attention to the issue. That the underlying hostility to foreign influences had not altogether disappeared, however, is clear from the literary confrontation that erupted in Copenhagen in 1789, commonly referred to amongst Danish historians as ‘the German feud’. It started fairly harmlessly as a quarrel between reviewers of a new opera produced in Copenhagen in March 1789, Holger Danske. When the libretto (by the Danish poet Jens Baggesen) was translated into German, and a Kiel reviewer C.F. Cramer praised the quality of the text, some of Baggesen’s Danish critics reacted. Peter Andreas Heiberg, already known for his provocative polemics (notably in his serial Rigsdalersedlens Hændelser, launched in 1787), used the occasion not just to denounce German influences in general, but also to call for better enforcement of the law of 1776. There was only one response which we can be sure came from amongst the German-oriented writers living in Copenhagen: a short piece published in German and probably written by a personal assistant of the finance minister, Schimmelmann. Yet over the next months, a flurry of reviews, parodies and pamphlets personalized the conflict, and although most contributions were published anonymously, 304 thomas munck it is clear that some well-known Copenhagen writers became involved, including the now elderly Rothe, the retired soldier Werner Abrahamson, and others. The confrontation was ostensibly about aesthetic judgment, the use of language, and the impact which German literary trends (notably in the writings of Goethe and Schiller) might have had on Danish poets such as Baggesen. Yet it appears to have touched a raw nerve in Copenha- gen amongst those who resented German influences generally, objected to foreigners occupying high-level posts, or were embittered by what they saw as a patronizing cultural imperialism from south of the border. Abra- hamson made some effort to see both sides of the argument,18 but he was an exception amongst the participants. Others mostly relied on crude and repetitive clichés that often failed to provide any real insights or cultural perception—a feature which in itself may have encouraged many of the Copenhagen intelligentsia to stay out of the fray altogether. When a long summing-up was published in the distinguished journal Minerva in April 1790,19 anonymous but known to be written by its editor Christen Pram, some of the heat seems to have gone out of the conflict. Even so Danish resentments continued to appear from time to time in reviews and other publications over the next few years. The German feud has figured prominently in Danish accounts of this period, and the most recent full-scale treatment of identity20 goes into considerable detail discussing its significance both in accelerating the early emergence of Danish nationalism, and in ensuring the irreversible sensitivity amongst Danish intellectuals to their dependency (or otherwise) on influences from the German-speaking lands. However, has the whole episode been inflated out of proportion? Have the interminably facile polemics of Heiberg, in particular, been taken too seriously as a proxy for wider public views in the 1790s? Has nineteenth-century nationalism been read backwards into the late Enlightenment, by historians who have chosen to highlight this particular incident without fully placing it in context? There are several reasons why these questions give grounds for hesitation. First of all, we still lack a full mapping of the rapidly evolving

18 Abrahamson’s pamphlet, Svar til Ø fra Z, published anonymously in the journal Minerva (Nov. 1789), is discussed in O. Feldbæk and V. Winge, ‘Tyskerfejden: den første national konfrontation’, in Dansk Identitetshistorie, ed. Feldbæk, ii.70–4; for the subsequent discussion, see notably Minerva, Jan. 1790, 50–9 and 329–46, and Nyeste Kiöben- havnske Efterretninger om lærde Sager, 1790, 486–96, and 553f. 19 Minerva, April 1790, 64–144. 20 Feldbæk and Winge, ‘Tyskerfejden’, 9–109. german cultural influences 305 public opinion which is reflected in print in Copenhagen after 1784, lasting well into the later 1790s.21 Once that has been done, the German feud may shrink to relative insignificance: in fact it involved only a small number of writers, hardly any of whom made any durable contribution to Enlighten- ment debate overall, or gained any recognition abroad. Strangely, several of the belligerents on the Danish side were clearly of German extraction, and some (including Abrahamson) were native German speakers. But it is important to note that, apart from the crucial role of Cramer in Kiel, there was very little response to the feud from within the Holy Roman Empire.22 If quarrels or feuds require two opposing parties, this particular one barely qualifies. In June 1790 the government office-holder and literary critic Johan Philip Rosenstand-Goiske summed up the whole discussion by pointing out how trivial much of the argument had been:23 one is tempted to think that he was right. As in other European states, there is no doubt that the central government itself, despite an outward facade of absolutism, was becoming increasingly sensitive to changes in public mood. The post-1784 government was clearly aware of the usefulness of print (both books and journals) in encouraging public understanding of major reforms, and where necessary in helping to marginalize the views of those who objected to an increasingly interventionist government: the processes surrounding the work of the Rural Reform Commission of 1786 is clear testimony to the government’s information management skills.24 In this new political climate, the issue of language and national sentiment had no clear role to play. On the contrary, the main impetus for liberal and enlightened reform came at least in part from those members of the crown prince’s entourage who were either Germans or strongly influenced by German cameralism. Several of the most prominent opponents of agrarian reform, including two nobles who broke all precedent by resigning from the royal

21 A helpful start has been made in terms of press discussion of European events, in Jens Kruse, Die Französische Revolution im Spiegel der Kopenhagener Zeitschriftenpresse, 1789–99: Eigen- und Fremdbild in der Pressefreiheitszeit (Rostock, 2004). 22 Based on searches in the Bielefeld University database of digitised periodicals at . This database includes the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, the Berlinische Monatschrift, the Stats-Anzeigen, and around 40 other journals covering a variety of political and editorial orientations. Interestingly, recent Ger- man historians likewise have very little to say about this Danish episode, and none have analysed it fully. Even the German historians contributing to Der dänische Gesamtstaat, ed. Bohnen and Jørgensen, offer no independent comment. 23 Feldbæk and Winge, ‘Tyskerfejden’, 68f. 24 Munck, ‘Absolute Monarchy’, 213–24. 306 thomas munck council in 1788, were members of the old Danish aristocracy. Those who were instrumental in voicing public opinion in Copenhagen quickly recognized that support for a ‘Danish’ approach to politics would thus have been tantamount to calling for a halt to the process of reform itself. The threat of such a reaction was soon graphically illustrated in the dramatic polarization of opinion between reformers and traditionalists which came to a head in the large-scale protest by one hundred Jutland landowners in the summer of 1790.25 Essentially, landowner resentments coalesced around a group who wanted to challenge the legality of the rural reform programme, and what they saw as government undermining of traditional seigneurial property rights and usage. The two landowners who took the lead, Beenfeldt and Lüttichau, both former army officers, opted to appeal to Landgrave Carl of Hessen, a senior military figure in the Danish government and shortly to become father-in-law to the crown prince. Accordingly, they drafted their petition of grievances in German: the Danish translation (intended for the crown prince) was prepared by Beenfeldt only at the last minute, before they set out, and Beenfeldt simply transferred all the signatures from the German original to the Danish version, without checking with the signatories themselves. The petition was handed over confidentially in August 1790, but its content soon became widely known through press reports and personal contacts. The whole matter was referred to the relevant government agencies, and by late October Colbiørnsen (now the chief law officer to the crown) responded by publishing the petition from the landowners in parallel text with his own acerbic refutations of their arguments. By then, no one could have had any doubt regarding the importance of this confrontation: not surprisingly, a few of the Jutland signatories denied having signed either version, whilst rather more claimed they knew only the German version and had not sanctioned the Danish text. Yet it is worth noting that Col- biørnsen played down the language issue, and in fact had his own piece translated into German immediately. He did so, explicitly, in order to correct misunderstandings that he noted had appeared in the German press,26

25 For a full discussion of this episode, see C. Bjørn, ‘Den jyske proprietærfejde 1790–91’, Historie: Jyske Samlinger, 13 (1979), 1–70. 26 He cites the Sept. 1790 issue of Schirach’s Politisches Journal. Colbiørnsen’s high-pub- licity approach, unusual for a senior state official in such a sensitive matter, was noted in other north German journals: the Historisch-politisches Magazin (published from Ham- burg), 9 (1791), 660–7, was sympathetic to the 88 Jutland landowners who stood by their signature of the original petition. german cultural influences 307 but he may also have had in mind the need to persuade and communicate across all parts of the state, not least given that Lüttichau himself was an effective polemicist both in Danish and in German. In the ensuing confrontation (which ended with Lüttichau losing a lawsuit before the supreme court in April 1791) the cultural and linguistic divide of the ‘German feud’, which had played out just months earlier, now seemed a storm in a teacup.

Comparing Cultural Influences on Denmark and Sweden in the Late Enlightenment

The disproportionate amount of attention which has been devoted by Danish historians to the anti-German or ‘nationalist’ dimension in public opinion between 1770 and 1790 may help to explain why the broader intellectual and cultural priorities of enlightened debate in Denmark, particularly in the later years, have not been analysed effectively from a European perspective. Despite the tense international situation from the late 1780s onwards, and a very brief war against Sweden in 1788, Denmark enjoyed an unprecedented period of openness and stability for more than a decade (1784–97). Although there were recurrent threats of renewed censorship from 1795 (finally implemented in 1799), the output of printed material, supplemented through newspapers and journals, suggests a lively and increasingly diverse public debate across a broader spectrum than ever before. New titles continued to appear in the 1790s, and both the long-running Lærde Efterretninger (Learned News), and the recently- founded monthly Minerva (from 1785) brought highly informative reports and debates to their readers.27 A number of major European works which had not been translated before were now belatedly rendered into Dan- ish, including most of Rousseau’s major works, Beccaria’s Dei delitti e delle pene (1764, Danish translation 1796–8), Kant’s essay ‘Was ist Aufklärung’ (1784, translated 1797), and Lessing’s play Nathan der Weise (1779, translated 1799). As we noted earlier, there was no obvious decline in German titles published in Copenhagen, nor any obvious renewed restraint in the reviewing of foreign books. Cross-cultural influences, however, are perhaps best studied within a more genuinely comparative framework, and in this respect Sweden

27 Munck, ‘Translating Enlightenment’. 308 thomas munck may provide a particularly useful reference-point —not least given the long-standing religious and cultural proximity of the two countries, and the dominant role of the two capital cities (Copenhagen approaching 100,000 inhabitants by 1790, Stockholm slightly smaller, but both in effect unchallenged hubs of political and economic life). Because of the exceptional circumstances of the ‘Age of Liberty’, Sweden had developed an impressively vigorous public discussion in the 1750s and 1760s, ranging across economic affairs, censorship, social relations, history, and scientific research.28 The concise economic analyses by Chydenius, or the lively pamphlets of Nordencrantz,29 stand out even by European standards, and in terms of originality and direct political relevance were well ahead of anything published in Denmark at this stage. Significantly, however, this Swedish public debate seems to have been largely self-driven, focusing on internal matters rather than engaging with broader European issues. Apart from some scientific work originally published in Latin, very little Swedish-language material was translated into other European languages. Equally, key texts such as Montesquieu’s De l’esprit des lois did not reach a wider Swedish audience at all: amongst those not able to read French, this particular book would surely have been highly relevant to Swedish political circumstances in the 1750s and 60s, and its importance could hardly have been missed since it was rendered into a range of other European languages (including Dutch, German and Danish). Some other foreign authors also appear not to have been fully absorbed into the Swedish discussion. Admittedly, we should not exaggerate the significance of such irregularities: Beccaria, for example, was translated much more quickly (1770) than in Denmark or Germany, and patterns of translation across Europe were in any case determined by a variety of factors, including the

28 Quantification of total print output is difficult to do accurately, but the Swedish on-line database of early prints (Svensk Bibliografi 1700–1819), available on the National Library of Sweden webpage, is one of the most reliable resources of its kind in Europe. It indicates a very significant increase in new titles in the middle decades of the eighteenth century, particularly during the periods when the Swedish Riksdag was meeting, culminating with nearly one thousand publications in 1771, but dropping to totals which normally stay within the range 250–400 per annum for the rest of the century. Latin retained a significant but steady share of the market throughout most of the century (often 15–20 titles p.a.), whilst French had a growing share after 1750, ahead of German. 29 Amongst the extensive writings by each of these, see notably the early call for laissez- faire economic policies found in A. Chydenius, Den nationnale Winsten (1765), his reflections on peasant–landowner relationships in Tankar om husbönders och tienstehions naturliga rätt (1778), and his demand for religious toleration (1779); or A. Nordencrantz’s series of pamphlets campaigning against censorship (1756, 1762, 1769), and his Märkwär- dige jämförelser (1772) on Swedish financial policies. german cultural influences 309 sometimes idiosyncratic preferences and business decisions of the publishers themselves. Nevertheless, there does appear to have been some degree of selective isolation in Sweden from mainstream European currents: part of this can no doubt be explained in terms of the reaction that set in after the coup by Gustavus III in 1772—marked by increasing political intervention in the print market, and some prominent prosecutions in the publishing trade—but there may have been other factors at work in the previous decades. Comparing the print market in the two northern capitals brings out some interesting contrasts. The Danes appear to have done less reprinting of French works in the original language, but this might be explained in terms of the ready availability of such texts directly through French- language bookshops in Hamburg and later also in Copenhagen. Clearly the Francophile Swedish court, and enthusiasts such as Carl Gustaf Tessin, made reprinting in French in Stockholm more viable, and it is worth noting that this category of texts included such sensitive works as Fénelon’s Les aventures de Télémaque fils d’Ulysse (1752). The difference in interest in English-language material in the two capitals is also striking: the Swedes had translated Locke back in 1709 and 1726, and by mid-century had a significantly bigger selection of authors than was available in Copenhagen. Because English was not a widely understood language in most of Europe, secondary translation was common: a volume of Hume’s essays (1767), for example, was translated into Swedish via French. But the Swedes also took a lead in actual instructional material to help direct access to Eng- lish originals. A fascinating English–Swedish dictionary was compiled by Jacob Serenius (first published in Stockholm in 1741, but greatly expanded in the Nyköping edition of 1757), using Latin as an intermediary language to help Swedish readers understand the subtleties of the English vocabu- lary.30 By comparison, Danes would have to make do with English gram- mars written in German, one of which was finally translated into Danish and published in Copenhagen in 1770, together with an English dictionary (also derived from German) in 1784—thirty years after the first English– Danish dictionary had been published in London. In any case virtually

30 J. Serenius, An English and Swedish Dictionary: wherein the generality of words and various significations are rendered into Swedish and Latin, forms of speech, proverbs and terms of art in husbandry and gardening especially (Nyköping, 1757)—an expensive large quarto volume of around 650 pages, each with two columns of text, densely but very clearly printed. Serenius had already published a compendium of readings from English writers on agrarian reform in 1727. 310 thomas munck no English-language material was published in Copenhagen at any time during the eighteenth century. Needless to say, there was no shortage of German instructional material available to Danish readers much earlier, and a Danish–French dictionary had appeared in Copenhagen in 1744. As late as 1796 one of the Danish review journals welcomed a new comprehensive German–Danish lexicon because it would facilitate access to what was explicitly described as a large amount of good reading available in German.31 More work is needed to confirm the different cultural influences and patterns at work in the two northern capitals. Many of the discrepancies were no doubt the direct result of the substantial differences in political evolution (especially after 1772), and others could have been purely accidental (publishers misjudging the market, or translators failing to ren- der a text in a usable form). But a glance at the way German-language periodicals from within the Empire commented on Scandinavian news confirms that cultural links differed substantively. Judging from a sample of German-language journals,32 major political events both in Copen- hagen and in Stockholm received much attention, as did issues such as the abolition of censorship in both kingdoms. German readers also seem to have welcomed historical comments relating to both, including the recent history of Sweden as a military power, or the events surrounding the establishment of absolutism in Denmark in 1660. In other respects, however, German discussions of what was happening in Copenhagen are noticeably better informed and more comprehensive than those dealing with Sweden. The ready channel of communication through Schleswig- Holstein, through the many Danes who spoke German, or via the German- language material published both in Copenhagen and in the Duchies for use by German-speaking subjects of the Danish crown, naturally helped to keep these cultural links alive. In contrast to the lack of reviews of most Swedish-language publications of the period, the German journals provided good coverage of works by Danish-language writers such as Hol- berg, Suhm, Malling, Rothe, Anders Schytte, Rahbek and Baggesen (whilst not surprisingly paying little attention to the Danish hack writers such as Heiberg). The north-German journals took considerable interest in the

31 Kiöbenhavnske Lærde Efterretning, 1796, 150. 32 The comments that follow are based on keyword searches of the same on-line selection of digitized journals (Zeitschriften der Aufklärung) at the University of Bielefeld as used above for Denmark: cf. n. 22. german cultural influences 311 agrarian reforms initiated in Denmark, yet had little to say about equivalent issues in Sweden (and offered no discussion of the writings of for instance Chydenius). In the case of fiction and theatre, one could even argue that the Copenhagen-based review journals and their north Ger- man counterparts engaged in what on occasion was almost a dialogue, for example in the discussion of new work by Moses Mendelssohn in the 1760s. These comparisons between the relative degree of interaction of the Copenhagen and Stockholm print markets with the main currents of European thinking can at this stage only be tentative. The Swedish market did not sustain review journals as comprehensive and long-running as those available in Copenhagen, so we cannot map Swedish reactions to major European publications as consistently as we can for Denmark. On the other hand, Swedish newspapers and daily reporting reached significantly higher standards, much earlier than in Copenhagen, and in due course this voluminous material may offer fresh perspectives on public opinion in Stockholm at least up to the 1770s. Nevertheless, from what has been noted so far, it is clear that Copenhagen literate and public opinion was significantly more closely linked to trends in northern Germany than that in Sweden, and that Danish authors were recognized in the Ger- man market in ways that seem to have escaped Swedish authors almost entirely. By contrast, and unusually in Europe, Stockholm may have made more effort to gain access to English-language material. Overall, considering the strong cultural links shared by the two monarchies, it seems that the experiences of Enlightenment in the two northern capitals were strikingly dissimilar.

Conclusions

There are good grounds for questioning recent Danish interpretations of an emergent ‘national’ resistance to German cultural influences in the last decades of the eighteenth century. Arguably, the Danes had no clear idea of what ‘national identity’ might mean in practice. Like their Euro- pean contemporaries, they had much to say about ‘patriotic’ values, and about their supposed historic origins as a people, but they did not get much further than that. The Danish language community was small, and the cultural distinctiveness that it might sustain was slow to emerge, by comparison with for example the wealth of new ideas from France, the German-speaking lands, Scotland and England. The brief (and it seems, 312 thomas munck largely artificial) outbursts of 1776 and 1789 no doubt reflect a Danish sense of inferiority and resentment against what might have seemed in some eyes a form of German cultural imperialism—a view, as historians have noted, not unlike the resentment found at the same time amongst some German writers against French influences. One can argue that the reaction following the overthrow of Struensee was a genuine attempt to bolster a narrow and specific sense of Danish identity based on birthplace, but it seems to have had little practical significance beyond narrow court circles; in any case the historical evidence does not allow us to distinguish genuine popular views from those manipulated by a regency government anxious to gain some public credibility. In reality the exclusion of 1776 was very difficult to implement clearly and, given the fluid southern boundary of the German-speaking communities in Schleswig and Holstein, created a false sense of clarity which was fundamentally at odds with the multilingual nature of the conglomerate state governed from Copenhagen. The contrast with Sweden, in respect of European Enlightenment influences, needs further work, but could prove instructive. Sweden followed a different and arguably more independently creative trajectory, relying (at least until momentum was gradually dissipated after 1772) on the domestic talent fostered by the challenges of the ‘Age of Liberty’, combined with some input from more radical western-European strands of Enlighten- ment. Unlike Sweden, the Danish monarchy experienced a second period of Enlightenment and stability after 1784, when practical reforms were implemented which helped to provide an effective bulwark against the types of upheavals experienced in many other parts of Europe. As this chapter has shown, German cameralist influences continued to contribute to debate in Copenhagen in the 1790s, alongside other European ideas. The ‘German feud’ was not a turning-point: arguably it seems more like a passing outbreak of hysteria triggered by a particular literary confrontation rather than by deeper tensions. Denmark did not turn away from its open southern cultural border—and in fact had no reason to do so, since the quite moderate forms of Enlightened thinking prevailing in the northern Protestant half of the Empire posed no threat to the monarchy. Section five

Imperial Culture and Identity

Centres or Periphery? Art and Architecture in the Empire1

Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann

What is characteristic of art and architecture in the Holy Roman Empire? This paper reflects on how to begin to frame an answer to this question, and eventually adduces a consideration of the issue of artistic centres. In dealing with artistic production and reception in the Reich in this way, it treats the problem in terms of centrality (or multi-centrality) versus periphery, in the Empire as in Europe. Consequently it responds to the more general question if there was a single, unified visual culture in the Holy Roman Empire. In so doing it offers a contribution to a debate highlighted in this collection, namely if there is any single focus, indeed any focus of any sort whatsoever, in the Empire. To begin, we clearly need some stricter geographical limits. Otherwise, to attempt to describe art and architecture in the Holy Roman Empire would in effect be to endeavour to recount the artistic accomplishments of much of Europe for the period of a millennium. During its existence from 800 to 1806 many of the current countries of Europe fell within the borders of the Empire, not just Germany, as the title ‘Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation’ which was adopted in the fifteenth century, might seem to suggest. For example, whatever arguments may be made about its constitutional status within the Empire, from the time of the Golden Bull in the fourteenth century the kingdom of Bohemia fell within the Reich, since the king of Bohemia was an imperial elector. The Czech lands comprised not only Moravia and Bohemia proper, but until 1635 Lusa- tia (now mainly in Germany), and from the fourteenth century until 1742 Silesia, now mainly in Poland. On two occasions, under Charles IV in the fourteenth century and under Rudolf II around 1600, Prague also became the imperial residence. Moreover, to ignore the importance of Prague and Bohemia is to ignore where the Thirty Years War started, a conflagration whose outcome was to determine the fate of the Empire.2

1 This paper is an expanded version of a lecture given at Oxford. In keeping with the original format, references have been restricted, and are made in general to sources of specific information or interpretation. 2 Cf. Georg Schmidt, Geschichte des alten Reiches: Staat und Nation in der Frühen Neu- zeit, 1495–1806 (Munich, 1999), and other essays in this volume. 316 thomas dacosta kaufmann

Furthermore, just as members of the Habsburg dynasty supplied rulers for Bohemia from 1526, so too from the late fifteenth century until the end of the Holy Roman Empire emperors (or their spouses) were chosen from the house of Habsburg, with only one exception. And the Habsburgs reigned over the lands of modern Austria as their hereditary possessions. Austria, too, may be counted within the Empire. The Habsburg presence recalls that of many other dynasties who also had connections with the Empire, thus also supplying links with the rest of Europe. The Empire encompassed many other European territories as well. The present-day Netherlands and Switzerland belonged to it, at least de jure, until treaties were signed in Westphalia in 1648. The lands now in modern Bel- gium also adhered to the Empire until its end. Until the same date of 1806 significant parts of Italy, including Lombardy and Tuscany, were also at least nominally contained within the Empire. Charlemagne’s original empire even comprised France, and until late in the seventeenth century large stretches of what are now the eastern and northern parts of France, including Artois, the Pas de Calais, Alsace, Lorraine, and the Franche- Comté, belonged to the Empire.3 The reason for recounting these more or less well-known facts is to make another obvious, but necessary, point: that the Holy Roman Empire must be considered in relation to the history of Europe as a whole. This observation applies to the history of European art as much as it does to other kinds of history, with significant consequences for its historiography. For the larger European frame of reference creates for central Europe historiographical difficulties. Many of what may be called cradles of artistic invention or production could at one time or another be counted as belonging to the Empire. To use conventional art-historical language, these include the sources of many artistic styles: the Romanesque and Gothic (France), the Renaissance, Mannerism, and the Baroque (Italy and the Low Countries), as well as the Rococo, Neoclassicism, and incipient Romanticism. Just naming these stylistic periods (to which Carolingian and Ottonian might be added on at the start) evokes the huge span that would have to be taken into account by an unrestricted geographical approach to the history of art in the Empire.

3 The geographical dimensions of the Reich are discussed in other essays in this collection. See also the useful compendium, Lesebuch Altes Reich, ed. Stephan Wendehorst and Siegrid Westphal (Munich, 2006), e.g. Matthias Schnetger, ‘Feudi imperialii—Reichsitalien’, ibid. 127–31, with further references ibid. 258. art and architecture in the empire 317

Like most other essays in this book, this paper therefore takes the approach of restricting consideration to the geographical areas encompassed by the German- and Slavic-speaking countries encompassed by the Reich. However, this very restriction indicates another conundrum for art history. It is evident that most of the styles or movements mentioned did not originate in the core Germanic lands of the Empire. This may explain in part why art in the Empire has been comparatively ignored by art historians. It is, however, worth noting exceptions to this tendency, because they lead to further insights. The treatment of the arts in the era of Albrecht Dürer is one such notable exception. Many art historians have argued that the Dürerzeit, which occurred c. 1500, and is also known as the age of the Old German Masters, was not only distinctive, but manifests artistic products which were at least the equals of what was created elsewhere in Europe at the same time. Thus the accomplishments of Lukas Cranach the Elder, Albrecht Altdorfer, and Matthias Grünewald in painting, Dürer in print-making, and Veit Stoss in sculpture have long been celebrated. As far as architecture is concerned, the great gothic hall churches erected at the same time, such as those in Annaberg, Schneeberg, and Freiberg in Sachsen, have also gained some notice in recent literature.4 The Old German Masters are indeed often taken to be the counterpart to the Italian Renaissance as we know it from fifteenth- or early sixteenth- century Florence, Rome, or Venice. Nevertheless, while since at least the writings of Heinrich Wölfflin Dürer has often been treated as their counterpart, no Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, or Titian appeared in central Europe. It is also significant that while he was in Germany the Habsburg emperor Charles V, who had been raised in the Low Countries, gave work to the great Venetian painter Titian. In any case, there is no equivalent in the lands of the Holy Roman Empire, not just to Titian, but to what is often called the High Renaissance in Italy, as represented by such figures as Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci. If we further define the Renaissance in relation to its first manifesta- tions in Italian art, and treat its appearance outside Italy as representing the advent of the Italianate revival of classical form together with content, the Renaissance in the German and Slavic lands is at first found in the graphic arts, painting, and sculptural ornament only in the lifetime of

4 E.g. Norbert Nussmann, German Gothic Church Architecture, trans. Scott Kleager (New Haven/London, 2000), esp. 185 ff. 318 thomas dacosta kaufmann

Albrecht Dürer.5 Here, aside from Dürer himself, the Renaissance generally appears not in fact in figural form or content, but as the style characterized by ornamental accessories, as in architectural surrounds. And outside the Hungarian court it comes to central Europe as a relatively late arrival. The same applies for further standard art-historical terms in reference to central Europe: later styles also appear belatedly, in other forms, or not at all, in the Empire. What used to be called Mannerism, the stylish successor to the High Renaissance in Italy, as it is seen in Florence around 1520 and thereafter as created by artists such as Jacopo da Pontormo, does not strictly correspond to the kind of art called Mannerist that was made by artists in the Empire. Mannerist art in central Europe is again a much later phenomenon: the term is applied most frequently to that art of refined expression and complicated intellectual content seen in works produced c. 1600 in central Europe, as evinced especially at the court of Rudolf II in Prague.6 More significant still, what is called Baroque in painting also usually does not appear in central Europe until much later than it is found (c. 1600) in Italy. And baroque architecture and sculpture, as it is known from the work of such paragons in Rome as Borromini or Bernini, was also not original to central Europe, but again came rather belatedly to the Empire. In fact, students of Bernini, such as Fischer von Erlach, or emulators of Borromini, like Jan Blasius Santini Aichel, brought it to Austria and the Czech lands only at the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth. Illusionistic ceiling painting on a grand scale, as produced by Pietro da Cortona or later il Bacciccio or Pozzo in Italy, was also brought north by Italians, including some figures who had worked in Rome—including Fra Pozzo himself, and those who emulated them. Similarly, the Rococo, as created in the fêtes galantes of Watteau or the elegant rooms of the Hôtel de Soubise, means something different in central Europe than it does in France. The norms of this style and its decorative forms were spread in the Empire by prints, or by collections of paintings, like Frederick the Great’s of Watteau’s pictures. But especially

5 For this approach to the Renaissance in central Europe, see Thomas DaCosta Kauf- mann, Court, Cloister, and City. The Art and Culture of Central Europe 1450–1800 (Chicago/ London, 1995). 6 For problems with this label in application to Rudolfine Prague, see however Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, The School of Prague: Painting at the Court of Rudolf II (Chicago/Lon- don, 1988). art and architecture in the empire 319 paintings of this sort were produced much later there than they appeared in France. Sometimes they were even purveyed in person by Watteau’s followers such as Louis de Sylvestre in Dresden or Antoine Pesne in Ber- lin. Others, including French or French-speaking architects and designers such as the Walloon François Cuvilliés, were responsible for some of the first rococo phenomena in Bavaria. On the other hand, studies of the Northern Renaissance, as it is often called, most often concentrate on early Netherlandish painting, from Van Eyck in the fifteenth to Brueghel in the sixteenth century, apart from mentioning Dürer and a few of his German contemporaries and followers. Then again, northern baroque painting comprises what was created by artists active in Antwerp and Brussels, like Rubens and Van Dyck in the seventeenth century—or by the golden age of Dutch painting as represented by Rembrandt and Vermeer in the same century. The importance of Netherlandish sculptors such as François Duquesnoy or architects such as Jacob van Campen, Pieter Post, and Philips Vingboons has also been given more attention recently.7 But for the seventeenth century it would appear from the literature in the art-history field that no like significance can be claimed for what is found on the other side of the great rivers. In fact Netherlandish art and artists flowed to its Germanic neighbours, and Netherlandish sculptors and architects were sought as much as painters. In most art-historical writings northern baroque, as it is often termed, hardly if ever touches on art in the Empire (in its Germanic or Slavic areas). Hence the treatment that French, Italian, Flemish, and Dutch art and architecture have received in the past and continue to receive in the present contrasts markedly with that granted to art and architecture in the Holy Roman Empire. Art in the Empire, if not ignored, is regarded as inferior. One simple answer to the question of what might define art in the Empire could consequently be that it is derivative. But that hardly seems to provide a real answer, and moreover overlooks the considerable accomplishments of architects and artists in the Reich, some of which are mentioned in the present essay, despite their more general neglect in western European (and American) writing on art. This hypothesis also places an overly conservative accent on the importance of origins rather than creative reception and adaptation of art, signs of thinking imparted

7 See Estelle Lingo, François Duquesnoy and the Greek Ideal (New Haven/London, 2007); Koen Ottenheym, Philips Vingboons, 1607–78, Architect (Zutphen, 1989); id., et al. (ed.), Jacob van Campen: het klassieke ideaal in de Gouden Eeuw (Amsterdam, 1995); id. and J.J. Terwen, Pieter Post, 1608–69, Architect (Zutphen, 1993). 320 thomas dacosta kaufmann by an older art history, to which the latest generation of writing on art has offered a strong rebuttal. The neglect and negative evaluation of art in the Empire stems from other reasons as well. The scholarly study and academic discipline of art history (including architectural history) were born and grew during a time in which nation states were established. As a consequence, until the Sec- ond World War the writing of art history often served national aims. Even when scholars tried to assume a more objective mantle, they nevertheless still tended to pose questions in national terms. Other approaches might have avoided this outlook, but they were not forthcoming from the one major discourse from which they might have been expected, the geography of art. This was a discourse that also developed around 1900 and flourished until after the Second World War. However, in its earlier phases—as opposed to its recent revival—the geography of art also collapsed into the national. Like contemporaneous historical approaches, the geography of art was also often informed by national, even nationalistic prejudices. Traditional artistic geography concerned itself with how styles express themselves in different places, or how various peoples express themselves through styles; and these were also understood as definitions of national identity. Stylistic periods and developments were consequently tied to the places where they supposedly originated. Consequently art and architecture were related to and limited by national borders.8 The geography of art, and its impact on art history, has been particularly problematic in terms of its treatment of art in the Empire. And this is the case even if we try to look beyond past prejudices that had dis- torted perspectives, and instead note its more recent reformulations. For the geography of art, like the history of art, has usually been concerned with the places where artistic styles or ideas originated and how they were disseminated from these places. But, as noted, this is precisely part of the problem: art and architecture were, with only few possible exceptions, most often disseminated from places outside the Germanic or Slavic regions of the Holy Roman Empire. A consequence of this way of thinking has thus been to reinforce reasons for the neglect of art in the Reich. Despite recent writing in English and other European languages during the last decades, art and architecture in the Empire from c. 1500 to 1800 have still not gained much general recognition outside the region, and

8 See, for the points mentioned in these paragraphs, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Toward a Geography of Art (Chicago/London, 2004). art and architecture in the empire 321 this is especially the case in publications in languages besides German, Czech, Hungarian, and Polish. Another consequence has been to reinforce the estimation of art and architecture in the Reich as secondary, derivative, or peripheral, for reasons stated. In this line of thinking no particular definition or special characteristics, other than provinciality, are to be granted to art in the Empire. An often repeated conclusion appears to be that the Holy Roman Empire stands at best on the periphery of art history from both the geographical and historiographic point of view. In standard histories of art published and taught outside germanophone regions there remains little place for art and architecture in the Empire. Most art historians have been hard put to find anything distinctive in the Reich in general, especially after Dürer. We often have to wait until the twentieth century (with Jugendstil, Sezession, Expressionism) for this to occur. The nationalist assumptions and ideology that, as suggested, lie ultimately behind much thinking of this sort led to many disasters of which we are too well aware. Here art history played its own negative part. This is signalled by the title of a booklet by Julius Langbehn of c.1900, Dürer als Führer. It should be clear that such ideas need to be discarded. This is especially so since national parameters and paradigms obviously do not fit a supranational entity like the Holy Roman Empire—unless we argue, as some scholars now do, that the Reich was a nation. Whether or not this be so, the Empire was clearly not a nation state, in the sense developed since the nineteenth century, but a multi-ethnic entity. In any case the terms and tools used by a more nationally oriented art history simply do not apply to the Empire. The multiple and multi-ethnic origins of artists and architects, and diverse kinds of creation, give the lie to any simple effort to claim special forms of national creation for art in the Empire, as would the diverse nature of the clients, patrons, and functions which buildings and movable objects served—none of which in a pre-national age were thought of in straightforward national terms. In contrast to national and nationalistic assumptions and paradigms the notion of ‘Holy Roman Empire’ stands for a supranational ideal.9 This was an ideal that was mirrored in the reality of what was actually thought and made. If we turn, as suggested, to the notion of reception, rather

9 For the basis of the arguments in this and the preceding paragraphs, see the arguments presented in Kaufmann, Court, Cloister and City and, more generally, Toward a Geography of Art. 322 thomas dacosta kaufmann than stylistic origin, we can accordingly look at what was produced and received in central Europe in another, more positive, light. The openness and multiethnicity of the area predisposed it to take up forms and ideas from elsewhere. And these ideas were not simply copied without comment or change. This is shown by the way artists in the Empire received, transformed, and adapted impulses from outside central Europe (and by central Europe is meant also Poland, Hungary, and other areas). Open- ness and adaptability thus represent another way of looking at the question of cultural exchange, placing an emphasis on reception rather than influence. And here we can point to the many marvellous adaptations of forms seen in central Europe, across the genres of painting, sculpture, and architecture. * The Holy Roman Empire may thus be seen as more than an area which simply received impulses from other areas, or gathered up influences. It was one in which they were amalgamated or transformed into their own sort of artistic gold. The Empire was not simply a provincial backwater in relation to the rest of Europe, but had its own characteristics. That being said, we are still left with some basic questions. Granted that there might be individual accomplishments and striking forms of art produced in the Empire, what might the more general character of its art be? Did it constitute a distinctive region? The question may be posed in terms of regional geography, of regions defined in terms of their relation to a centre. The Reich could not be considered to be a distinctive, independent region if it lacked a real artistic centre (or as we shall see, centres). I have already examined this question of centres in regard to east-central Europe, including the Czech, Polish, and Hungarian crown lands.10 What of ‘west-central Europe’, that is, the Empire? Was it merely peripheral to other regions of Europe? Can it not be conceived of as having its own centre, its own provinces, its own periphery? Centres have been defined in terms of the history or geography of art as comparable in their complexity to geographical, political, economic, and religious centres. They have been defined as places of innovation, where paradigms were first created that would come to determine the course of art. These centres were characterized by a great number of artists and specialized workshops; a significant ability to distribute and export works of

10 See Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, (Ost-)Mitteleuropa als Kunstgeschichtsregion? (Leipzig, 2006). art and architecture in the empire 323 art; numerous patrons with means to spend on works of art; complexity in the artistic realm; institutions (e.g. academies) of instruction, formation, and promotion of artists; means for distribution of their works; and also a heterogeneous public with access to extensive information about art and with expectations and demands for it. Such centres of innovation were cities which not only promoted the production of art; they also had a rich and large or growing population that consumed art, providing patronage for the formation of artists, for collecting and connoisseurship, for the production, sale, even the falsification of works of art, and for writing on art history. Art and artists from these places were sought after far and wide, on self-defining artistic peripheries.11 However, though useful, this definition of centres proceeds from geographical premisses, and as such is ahistorical, or transhistorical, in that it assumes that a centre exists over a long period of time, much like other normative geographical features. But in art history, the existence of centres over a long term seems questionable. Artistic (and population) centres existed in such places as Paris, Venice or Florence. But from 1400 none of them remained predominant for more than a relatively limited time, a few centuries at most—even Rome—and usually much less. We should therefore envisage not a static situation, but changes over time. Let us examine three different periods within the history of the Holy Roman Empire: the epoch c.1500; the period c. 1600; and then that of c. 1700, or better put, the earlier years of the eighteenth century. These seem to represent three broadly different moments. In the first case multiple loci appear to exist, without there being any single dominant centre. In the second case there seems to be one predominant centre, but many subsidiary or derivative ones, some of them relatively independent. Finally there appear to be many different and rival centres, a situation that lasts in effect until the end of the Empire. First, let us consider again the age of the Old German Masters, roughly from the end of the fifteenth through the first decades of the sixteenth century, the period of Dürer’s maturity. This was undoubtedly an age of great artistic creativity, as mentioned; art in the Empire was by no means derivative from other areas, and at this time it cannot therefore be regarded as peripheral or provincial. However, important places for artistic production were quite widespread: major loci appeared wherever a successful master

11 For these definitions, taken from Carlo Ginzburg and Enrico Castelnuovo, and their applicability to central Europe, see Kaufmann, Toward a Geography of Art, 154 ff.; cf. id., (Ost-)Mitteleuropa als Kunstgeschichtsregion? 324 thomas dacosta kaufmann set up shop, and his innovations were then disseminated. The regular and almost serialized methods of production of the early modern atelier in which sculptors, painters, and printmakers worked created Meisterwerke massenhaft, mass-produced masterworks.12 This notion has been applied to the wood sculpture made in Ulm by what used to be called the workshop of Jörg Syrlin, now Nikolaus Weckmann; but the same might be said for the prolific production of fine altarpieces and individual saints by Tilman Riemenschneider in Würzburg, where a distinctive figural type was produced that was recognizably Riemenschneiderian—probably deliberately so—and in relatively large numbers.13 Similar sculptors’ workshops were set up in many places: by Stoss in Nuremberg, the Erharts in Augsburg, and elsewhere. Similar circumstances affected painting. The entrepreneurial skills of the Cranach workshop, first located in Wittenberg, and then in Weimar, provide a prime example. At first led by Lucas Cranach the Elder, the workshop created many successful compositions which were often rep- licated, often in what seems to be multiple fashion (see illus. 1).14 A characteristic device, the winged serpent, was applied to paintings; much like the goldsmiths’ marks:15 it guaranteed quality and origin. Akin to such sorts of repeated production, German artists like Cra- nach and Dürer turned to the truly reproductive media of printmaking. Although this is said to mark the beginnings of what has been called the age of mechanical reproduction, at their hands woodcuts, etchings, and engravings soon became cherished as works of art—as is indicated by their being amassed into print collections. Prints were thus a mass enterprise of high quality, but in the first instance relatively low-cost goods. At the high end of the scale were items produced by goldsmiths. Although they were made throughout the Empire, chief centres of production, indeed for many centuries, were again Augsburg and Nuremberg.16 Other sorts of precious or finely crafted objects, in ivory, boxwood, and other materials,

12 Meisterwerke massenhaft: Die Bildhauerwerkstatt des Niklaus Weckmann und die Malerei in Ulm um 1500, ed. Heribert Meurer et al. (Stuttgart, 1993). 13 The marketing strategies involved in the creation of style in such works as that of Tilman Riemanschneider were emphasized by Michael Baxandall, The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany (New Haven/London, 1980). 14 For the entrepreneurial aspects of the production of the Cranach workshop, see Lucas Cranach. Ein Maler-Unternehmer aus Franken, ed. Claus Grimm et al. (Regensburg, 1994). 15 See Helmut Seling, Die Kunst der Augsburger Goldschmiede, 1529–1868. Meister. Mar- ken. Werke (3 vols, Munich, 1980, with supp. vol. 1994). 16 See Silber und Gold. Augsburger Goldschmiedkunst für die Höfe Europas, ed. Reinhold Baumstark and Helmut Seling (2 vols, Munich, 1994). art and architecture in the empire 325 were also made by urban craftsmen, at this time, and during the rest of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Vessels made for use and for collections, these also were sold throughout the Empire, and beyond.17 Augsburg and Nuremberg were comparatively large places at this time, and major mercantile centres as well. But in general the population in the Empire was also spread through many smaller cities and towns; in any case neither commerce nor the presence of a major market, while sometimes important, nor a large population, necessarily led to the establishment of a single important artistic centre. For example, Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main, while major mercantile and banking centres, failed to become so for the arts (though Frankfurt did so for a brief time c. 1600, and housed an important art market later).18 Conversely, once market advantages passed, so too might artistic possibilities: Lübeck, the leading Hanse centre, had in the later fifteenth century also been home to successful workshops like that of Bernt Notke. Notke had sent altarpieces and other monuments (the St George in the Great Church, Stockholm: see illus. 2), some on a large scale, as far away as Tallinn and Stockholm. But as the commercial pre-eminence of Lübeck began to be challenged in the sixteenth century by towns from the Low Countries, it also ceased to claim importance as a centre for artistic export, as opposed to imports. Furthermore, although we tend to think of metropolises, with their large populations, as centres for the arts as well as for other activities, that was not necessarily the case at this time. Cologne, the largest city in the Reich, which had also been important for the arts until at least the early fifteenth century, could no longer contend in this sphere with other, smaller places. Dominant court centres were also absent at this time. While Witten- berg and Halle, the residences of the Saxon dukes and the archbishop of Magdeburg, Albrecht of Brandenburg, respectively, promoted the production of remarkable buildings, sculpture, and painting, particularly the sites associated with Albrecht (Halle, Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg,) took in more than they sent out. Significantly, the imperial court, which under Maximilian I of Habsburg was a major consumer and promoter of the arts, did not contribute much to their production: the still peripatetic nature

17 See in general, and for goldsmiths’ works, Quasi centrum Europae: Europa kauft in Nürnberg 1400–1800, ed. Hermann Maué (Nuremberg, 2002). 18 The development of the Frankfurt art market is the continuing topic of the research of Michael North. For Frankfurt as an artistic centre c. 1590, see Georg Flegel 156–1638: Stilleben, ed. Kurt Wettengl (Stuttgart, 1993). 326 thomas dacosta kaufmann of the court under Maximilian may have accounted for this. Furthermore, Maximilian’s greatest works of patronage remained literally on paper, in the form of prints. In view of these circumstances, it has been argued that Nuremberg was Germany’s most important artistic centre.19 With the presence of Dürer and his workshop, in which were found at one time or another Hans von Kulmbach and Hans Schäufflein, as well as that of the sculptors Stoss, Adam Kraft and the Vischer family, the claim might well be made. But competitors were present all over, and Nuremberg did not stand alone, by any means. For example, for goldsmiths’ work Nuremberg was certainly rivaled and often surpassed by other sites,20 including notably Augsburg; brassmaking may have been important in Nuremberg, but for all Veit Stoss’ greatness, Nuremberg sculpture was equaled by that made elsewhere. Nuremberg certainly continued to be home to artists for perhaps longer than did other such cities, with the exception of Augsburg, but as a producer of art, it too was soon supplanted by other sites. The early sixteenth-century situation was thus much more complex, because the tapestry of the arts was widely variegated. It seems as if almost any town or city which was prosperous enough to call forth church construction could also become an artistic centre at this time. For instance, in Saxony, where no town apart from Leipzig probably reached the population level of 10,000, many sites for artistic production existed. A cloth- making town like Zwickau could thus be the home for a major painting and sculptural workshop, that of Peter Breuer. In the booming mining towns of the Erzgebirge, huge and impressive hall churches went up in places like Annaberg or Freiberg, and were decked out with sculpture by Hans Witten, who did the Tulip Pulpit in Freiberg. Freiberg provides a good example for the more general situation: while its population was relatively small, it still managed to support eighteen workshops of painters and sculptors.21 This remarkable period thus seems to be characterized by a dense and rich network of artistic creation, rather than by any one dominant centre.

19 See Jeffrey Chipps Smith (ed.), Nuremberg, a Renaissance City, 1500–1618 (Austin, TX, 1983). 20 See for example Jeffrey Chipps Smith, The Art of the Goldsmith in Late Fifteenth- Century Germany: the Kimbell Virgin and her Bishop (Fort Worth/New Haven, 2006). 21 For the general situation, also with reference to art and architecture, see Klaus Kratz- sch, Bergstädte des Erzgebirges. Städtebau und Kunst zur Zeit der Reformation (Munich/ Zurich, 1972). art and architecture in the empire 327

This conclusion may challenge the paradigm of centre and periphery, in terms both of geography, and of the economic relations on which the model was first based. For places which might appear both geographically and economically peripheral in the region, like Regensburg or Pas- sau, could house major artists, respectively Albrecht Altdorfer and the Master of Kefermarkt, probably Martin Kriechbaum; on the other hand, seemingly central sites, like Frankfurt, did not. * Within a century things would change. Places like Nuremberg and Augs- burg still remained centres of production, but they purveyed their art to what became the major consumers and producers of art, namely the residences of courts. The most important of these around 1600 was that of Rudolf II.22 Rudolfine Prague was acknowledged by contemporaries as the place to go to see collections of art. Rudolf’s collections were great in quality as well as in size. For instance, they contained most of the paintings of Pieter Bruegel (the Elder), Correggio’s masterpieces, many paintings by Titian, Tintoretto, and other Venetians, Leonardo’s Cecilia Galleriani, and Dürer’s Madonna of the Rosary, among many of the artist’s works, and a host of other pictures, along with drawings, sculpture by Giambologna and other masters, and many fine pieces of the applied arts. Moreover, during Rudolf II’s reign many painters, sculptors, printmakers, stone- cutters, clockmakers, goldsmiths, and masons came to Prague from all parts of Europe. They delivered works to their imperial patron, and to aristocratic, bourgeois, and ecclesiastical patrons as well. Printmakers, including an official court printmaker, Egidius Sadeler, spread knowledge of their art (see illus. 3). While the applied arts flourished, and one great sculptor, Adriaen de Vries, was active in Prague, painters were particularly notable at the court of the emperor. More than a score served there, and they developed a coherent circle, if not a unified one, with many shared stylistic traits. Active for Rudolf were such painters as Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Bartholomeus Spranger, Hans von Aachen, and Joseph Heintz, from, respectively, what are now Italy, the Low Countries, Germany and Switzerland. Although no formal academy was founded in Prague, academic ideals (the relation of poetry to painting, learned eloquence as an ideal for art, accordingly the

22 See Kaufmann, The School of Prague, and Rudolf II and Prague. The Court and the City, ed. Eliška Fučíková (Prague etc., 1997). 328 thomas dacosta kaufmann application of the rules of decorum to the pictorial arts) were espoused there. In addition, Prague not only possessed a lively art market, but court artists also exported their paintings and sculpture far and wide. Thus all the definitions of a centre for the arts would seem to be filled. Many works of art from Prague were either given to, or commissioned by, the other smaller German courts, of both princes and prince-prelates, as in Paderborn, Bamberg or Würzburg. In turn, many princes of Germany created their own centres, with Kunstkammern, new Schlösser, gardens, grottoes, and churches. Dresden under the Wettin dukes from August to Christian II, Wolfenbüttel under Heinrich Julius, and even small courts like Lemgo or Detmold under Simon of Lippe, were all places for the arts whose rulers had a close connection with Prague. These and many other rulers built fancy residences, villas, or pleasure houses, and collected and promoted the creation of works of art for purposes of representation, but also because it had become de rigueur for princes to take an interest in fine art and architecture. And in all of this they emulated, and even in many instances followed, the lead of the Holy Roman Emperor. For in many instances, they got objects from Prague, like the bust of Christian II of Saxony given by Rudolf to the Elector, meant to cement a friendly relation, but also an incentive to collect in a similar manner (and one which would be surpassed by the emperor). Prague was the centre to which German princes, and not only them, gravitated, and around which they revolved.23 In politics Rudolf II may have enjoyed little success, but of his impact in the arts, and thereby on the culture of the Empire, there can be no question. Hence while in theory and protocol the emperor may have been only first among equals, he was clearly sovereign when it came to the arts. In a universe in which princes were patrons and collectors, he was the greatest collector and patron of all. It can thus be argued that Rudolf II’s Prague was the major artistic centre in the Holy Roman Empire at the time—and not only there, because art in Prague also had a huge impact on painting, sculpture and drawing throughout central Europe, including Poland, the Low Countries, and

23 For this point, and the arguments in the previous paragraph, see Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, ‘Planeten im kaiserlichen Universum. Prag und die Kunst an den deutschen Fürstenhöfen zur Zeit Rudolfs II.’, in Hofkunst der Spätrenaissance. Braunschweig-Wolfen- büttel und das kaiserliche Prag um 1600 (Ex. Cat., Braunschweig, 1998), 9–19; also in English in Kaufmann, The Eloquent Artist. Essays on Art Art theory and Architecture Sixteenth to Nineteenth Century (London, 2004), 174–207. art and architecture in the empire 329

Scandinavia (Denmark) as well.24 An artist from Rudolf II’s court (Corne- lis de Heem) even reached south central India. While the smaller German courts might be regarded as planets in the imperial universe, and cities like Augsburg and Nuremberg were also dependent on Prague and other princely centres, relations remained nevertheless more complicated at this time. The period c. 1600 saw Rudolfine Prague as pre-eminent, but its art still did not characterize the whole region. For example, the court in Munich, while closely related through marriage and inclination in many ways to that in Prague, and interchang- ing many artists, cannot be said to have followed the Habsburgs’ example. Several court artists, like Georg Hoefnagel and Hans von Aachen, in fact worked first for the Wittelsbachs. The Munich model of court-sponsored art, where a single impresario controlled and directed matters, was one derived from Florence, and effected in Bavaria by Netherlandish artists such as Friedrich Sustris and Peter Candid who had in fact worked in Tuscany before coming to Bavaria. Then again the religious, Counter- Reformation focus of art in Bavaria—its major manifestation is the Jesuit St Michael’s church in Munich, designed by Sustris, and outfitted by a score of artists (see illus. 4)—was not to be found to such an extent in Rudolfine Prague.25 At the other end of the confessional divide the Calvinist courts of the Palatinate, in Heidelberg under Ottheinrich and Frederick IV and V, and in Marburg and Kassel under the art-loving iconoclast Maurice the Learned, can also not be said to derive from Prague. While Maurice shared Rudolf’s interests in alchemy, his taste in painting, and attitude towards religious art was much different. Iconoclasm was always a problem in Bohemia, but it did not surface under Rudolf. Thus even at this moment the Empire was characterized by a wide variety of forms and phenomena. In any event, with Rudolf II’s death, the seat of the imperial court was moved to Vienna. Soon the Thirty Years War spelled an end to any claim to pre-eminence that Prague might have. The city was taken repeatedly, and the remains of Rudolf ’s collections were sacked in 1648. Just as the Habsburgs could in the end not dominate the Reich, so their cultural policies also failed to predominate. Cultural production was disrupted, if not ended everywhere in the Reich. While the catastrophe thus displaced

24 See the essays reprinted in Kaufmann, The Eloquent Artist, esp. 163–236. 25 Relations between Prague and Munich were the topic of a symposium held in Prague in 2007, whose papers are now published as München—Prag um 1600 = Studia Rudolphina, Sonderheft, ed. Beket Bukovinská and Lubomír Konečný (Prague, 2009). 330 thomas dacosta kaufmann things rather than ending them, clearly a new situation emerged after 1648.26 With the development of a different internal dynamic, and the rise of different external factors, including the model of Louis XIV’s Versailles and the decline of the hegemony of Rome in the arts as in politics, a new situation came into view towards the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is instructive to reconsider the role of the Habsburgs at this time. The Habsburgs planned grand sites in and around Vienna. Chief of them was Schönbrunn (see illus. 5), which was originally planned to be a sort of super-Versailles, reconverting Ludovi- cian imagery into Habsburg panegyric. But Schönbrunn, extraordinary as it was in Fischer von Erlach’s initial design, was never realized in its full grandeur. Vienna was described by a contemporary as glorious, and with its many palaces, churches, frescoes and fine sculpture, it deserved the term. However, it has been argued that the aristocrats of the empire, not the Habsburgs, forged the new capital. But in all of this it was not unique. While Vienna may be seen as an important artistic centre, it was but one of many such centres located throughout the Empire, on which other smaller sites may have depended. The existence of multiple, competing centres, not a single site, was the order of the day. Many courts in the Reich raised large residences c. 1700. As Rudolf Vierhaus has suggested, the courts were political instruments, and display was therefore a form of duty.27 Hence arose many sites with which we are still familiar. The Margrave Elector of Brandenburg, newly crowned as king in Prussia, built grand palaces at Charlottenburg and in the middle of Berlin, laid out Unter den Linden, and placed the striking Arsenal on it, as well as rebuilding the Schloss in Potsdam. In Dresden the duke of Saxony, now king of Poland, refurbished the Schloss, put up adjacent buildings like the court church, and constructed a number of spaces for the collections and various court entertainments in and around Dres- den, including the Zwinger (see illus. 6) which served not only for pleasure, but to express magnificence. In Dresden these were also to house his fabled collections, and included the Green Vaults for the unparalleled collection of gems and objects made out of precious stones or ivory, and the so-called Japanese Palace, for the collections of porcelain, reinvented

26 This point is emphasized by other papers in this collection. For the effects of the Thirty Years War see, however, Kaufmann, The Eloquent Artist, 236–82. 27 Rudolf Vierhaus, Germany in the Age of Absolutism, trans. Jonathan B. Kundsen (Cambridge, 1988), 35. art and architecture in the empire 331 in Europe. The duke of Württemberg also put up a large Schloss in Lud- wigsburg. And the duke-electors of Bavaria were not to be outdone: with Schleissheim, Nymphenburg, and the refurbishing of the Munich residence they also manifested their claims to magnificence, which were eventually, if briefly, to be realized by the accession of a Wittelsbach as Holy Roman Emperor in the 1740s. And these were only a few of many sites, including Karlsruhe, Man- nheim, Düsseldorf, Benrath, and Rastatt. Behind them all stood the recognition, as had been said in regard to other rulers, that princes can gain immortality through great buildings as well as through battles.28 Their equivalents were the large abbeys, like Melk, Klosterneuburg or Fulda, and many other churches which were also remodeled and embellished in the early eighteenth century. To spend money on the arts was already standard by 1600, but a century later this was seen to an unprecedented extent. As rulers in many parts of Europe struggled for hegemony, and prelates also sought to express their standing in society, competition was manifested in the design, decoration, and expansion of gardens and of what were often gigantic buildings, and the amassing of large collections gathered in them. Many courts—Hanover, Brandenburg-Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, even Württemberg—now aspired to, and several obtained, royal titles, and in Bavaria for three years even the imperial dignity. The smaller courts also sought their own expression of cultural distinction. And this situation persisted until the end of the Reich. The period c. 1700 would suggest that there were many centres present in the Reich. ‘Multicentrality’, rather than ‘center–periphery’, would be an appropriate model. Even the most cursory consideration of Dresden, Ber- lin, Vienna, Ludwigsburg, and many other places at this time—including Melk and the other ecclesiastical sites—must dispel any impression that such splendid buildings or works of art were somehow peripheral or insig- nificant. They stand comparison with any contemporary sites elsewhere in Europe. Yet they are very various, and besides the general circumstances in which they were formed, as well as some general features—common to all the palaces, cloisters, gardens, etc.—they do not display any particular stylistic or formal unity.

28 Joachim von Menzhausen, ‘Sinn und Wert des Mäzenatentums deutscher Fürsten im 18. Jahrhundert’, Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, 1989, 172. 332 thomas dacosta kaufmann

* Looking back at variations of the centre–periphery model over three centuries of art and architectural history in the Empire, we have encountered certain problems with the methods by which the region, or its characteristics, might be defined. The shifting pattern of centre–periphery relations means that at any one time, even around 1600 when Rudolfine Prague seems to have been pre-eminent, there were many different and important places where art was made or received. This of course has to do with the very fragmented nature of the territories of the Empire. The point is nowhere better illustrated than in the smaller Saxon duchies. In the later seventeenth century Merseburg, Zeitz, and Weissenfels all had their moment as secundogeniture residences.29 In the period c. 1800, and into the early nineteenth century it became the turn, even more significantly, of Weimar, when such a duodecimo principality could be home to Herder, Schiller, and Goethe. Although these great writers do not stand for the visual arts, they lead to the conclusion that the situation for the arts was different in the Holy Roman Empire than in the lands from which the models of centre–periphery and culture regions are derived. The model of a Paris, London, or Rome does not hold very well for the Altes Reich. What then is characteristic of art and architecture in the Holy Roman Empire? Rather than any single style or form, a plethora of phenomena appears. The visual culture of the Reich is as variegated as its political entities. Certain general social or cultural tendencies may have affected artistic appearances at various times, but these are not consistent. Mul- tiple centres existed, rather than any one dominant site for very long. The competition and choices that this variety promoted often stimulated the production and collection of works of high quality. When it comes to art and architecture in the Empire, disunity seems to have been strength.

29 See Barocke Fürstenresidenzen an Saale, Unstrut und Elster, ed. Joachim Säckl and Karin Heise (Petersberg, 2007). Where Did the Jewels of the German Imperial Princes Come From? Aspects of Material Cultural in the Empire

Kim Siebenhüner

Jewellery and precious stones are omnipresent among the accoutrements of European rulers. They have left their traces in pictures, texts and, more rarely, in surviving objects. We encounter them as pieces of jewellery worn or stored in coffers, as embellishments for garments and precious ecclesiastical objects, as pledges, modes of payment or gifts. A painting by Bernhard Strigel manages to capture the self-assurance with which the Habsburgs wore their jewels (See illus. 1).1 The picture, which was painted after 1515, shows Emperor Maximilian I (1459–1519) and his family: next to the emperor we see his first wife, Mary of Burgundy (1457–82), between them their son Philip the Handsome (1478–1506), in front at left Maximilian’s

1 Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Bernhard Strigel (1460–1528), Family of Emperor Maximilian I, after 1515, Inv. no. 832. At the time when the picture was painted, Mary of Burgundy had already been dead for more than thirty years. The painting was commissioned by the emperor to commemorate the 1515 double betrothal in Vienna which sealed the alliance through marriage of the Habsburgs with the Jagiellon royal family. Cf. Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, Wolfgang Prohasta and Karl Schütz, Die Gemäldegalerie des Kunsthistori- schen Museums in Wien. Verzeichnis der Gemälde (Vienna, 1991), plate 571, text p. 117; Aus- stellung Maximilian I, Innsbruck, ed. E. Egg (Innsbruck, 1969); Wilfried Seipel and Leopold Auer (ed.), Kaiser Ferdinand I., 1503–64. Das Werden der Habsburgermonarchie (Vienna, 2003), 77, 335. As yet we have no study of the Habsburg jewels comparable to that by Diana Scarisbrick for the Tudors or Paola Venturelli for the Sforzas in Milan. See, however, Orsolya Réthelyi et al. (ed.), Mary of Hungary. The Queen and Her Court, 1521–31 (Budapest, 2005), esp. 121–8; Paola Venturelli, Gioielli e gioiellieri milanesi. Storia, arte, moda, 1450–1630 (Milan, 1996); Diana Scarisbrick, Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery (London, 1995); Victoria & Albert Museum (ed.), Princely Magnificence. Court Jewels of the Renaissance, 1500–1630 (London, 1980); Anna Somers Cocks, An Introduction to Courtly Jewellery (London, 1980). Thus far, the study of jewels has been the province mainly of jewellery historians with an art historical orientation. Cf. Joan Evans, A History of Jewellery, 1100–1870 (London, 1953); J. Anderson Black, The History of Jewelry. Five Thousand Years (New York, 1974); Yvonne Hackenbroch, Renaissance Jewellery (London/Munich, 1979); Hugh Tait (ed.), Seven Thou- sand Years of Jewellery (London, 1986); Ronald W. Lightbown, Mediaeval European Jewel- lery. With a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria & Albert Museum (London, 1992). For more on research recent trends, see Lia Lenti and Dora Liscia Bemporad (ed.), Gioielli in Italia. Tradizione e novità del gioiello italiana dal XVI al XX secolo (Venice, 1999), and ead. (ed.), Gioielli in Italia. Sacro e profano dall’antichità ai giorni nostri. Atti del convegno di studio (Venice, 2001). 334 kim siebenhüner two grandsons, the future emperors Ferdinand I (1503–64) and Charles V (1500–58), and at right Louis II (1506–26), heir to the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia. All members of the family wear precious jewellery without appearing overdressed. Particularly striking is Mary of Burgundy’s splendid pendant, hanging from a finely woven chain, with a large red precious stone in the middle. The young Louis also wears an elaborate pendant, adorned with a large, sparkling bluish stone and a massive pearl. Emperor Maximilian, his son Philip and his grandson Charles wear the chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece with the symbolic pendant in the form of a sheepskin. Charles’ and Philip’s hat brooches also stand out. Charles’ bon- net is adorned with a cameo of dark stone surrounded by pearls.2 The painting provides a first impression of the Habsburg jewels. With- out according them undue attention, the artist allows the jewels to embel- lish their wearers as a matter of course. They are well placed but not dominant, precious but not excessively large. The Habsburg jewels are also documented in various inventories. The 1524 jewellery inventory of Archduke Ferdinand, for example, lists numerous valuable pieces of jewellery and precious stones. They include a cloak pin studded with emeralds, turquoise, rubies, diamonds and pearls, a cross pendant with diamonds and pearls, and a ‘picture of St George with thirty-three diamonds and twelve rubies and seven emeralds’.3 These treasures have not survived, to be sure, but some very similar pieces have. There is a St George pendant in the Green Vault in Dresden, for example (see illus. 2). Fashioned of gold and enamel and studded with diamonds, rubies and emeralds, this late sixteenth-century pendant shows Saint George battling the dragon.4 The 1547 inventory of jewellery belonging to Ferdinand’s wife, Anne of Hungary and Bohemia, lists several dozen items. Among other pieces, she owned a jewel with a ‘splendid large table-cut diamond, encrusted all around, and with a fine ruby globe above with a pendant pearl’5 (see illus. 3).

2 For a more detailed discussion of Renaissance hat brooches, see Yvonne Hacken- broch, Enseignes. Renaissance Hat Jewels (Florence, 1996). 3 Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, 2 (1884), no. 1511, ciii–cvi, ciii. 4 Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden, Inv. no. VIII 265. Cf. Einführung in das Grüne Gewölbe, ed. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (10th edn, Dresden, 1984), 34; Das Grüne Gewölbe zu Dresden. Führer durch seine Geschichte und seine Sammlungen, ed. Dirk Syndram (Munich/ Berlin, 1994). 5 Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, 5 (1887), no. 4525, cxxxii–clx, quotation at cxxxvi. aspects of material cultural in the empire 335

Anne wears a similar—perhaps even the same—one in a painting of 1519 by Hans Maler, which depicts her at the age of sixteen.6 Surviving pieces of jewellery, contemporary paintings and inventories document the ownership of jewels by the Habsburgs and other imperial princes. They point to a history of material culture and precious objects in the Old Empire—a history that remains to be written, and whose task would be to explore the materiality and semantics of the valuable pieces, to examine aspects of the appearance and production of individual jewels and to lay bare their changing meanings. Precious stones and jewels were highly mutable objects. They could be part of a treasure or serve as a simple means of payment. They were offered as pledges or securities for loans. Magical and therapeutic characteristics were attributed to them. Put on display, they revealed the prestige and social status of their owners. In the noble cabinets of curiosities they ultimately became objects of study. Used as a historiographic lens, the objects focus our attention on the art, economy and values of imperial princely society. In what follows, however, I shall be concerned less with the semantics of the material culture of precious objects than with the social and economic practices associated with them. Like other objects, the valuables belonging to the imperial princes were integrated in processes of transfer and circulation. The raw materials of the jewels—including pearls and precious stones—had to be procured and processed, and once the treasures had been fashioned and distributed they changed hands regularly. The acquisition and transfer of precious objects became part of a circulation between craftsmen, traders and distributors involving a multiplicity of actors. Ownership of jewels among the imperial princes also depended upon contacts with these actors. The attempt to get a closer handle on these intermediaries and their practices is based on the simple yet fundamental question of where the valuables belonging to the imperial princes and the precious stones with which they were studded came from in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I am interested in the ‘itinerary’ of the jewels and thus in the geographical dimension of material culture7 as well as in the history of the trade in these objects and its actors—in the issue of whence, in what ways and through whose hands precious stones and jewellery reached the Habsburgs. As we shall see, the question of the

6 Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Inv. no. 1937.2 (275). Cf. Seipel (ed.), Kaiser Fer- dinand I., III.14. 7 On geography in the analysis of art objects, see also Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Toward a Geography of Art (Chicago/London, 2004). 336 kim siebenhüner origins of these precious objects takes us to the Far East, thus opening up a perspective on the global associations of material culture in the Holy Roman Empire. The precious stones in imperial collections, much like the ‘exotica’ that began to fill princely chambers of curiosities in the sixteenth century,8 came from the West and East Indies. Their transfer is part of a ‘connected history’,9 and embedded in the growing cultural contacts between Asia and Europe after 1500.10 Unlike Portugal, Spain, England and the Nether- lands, however, the Austrian Habsburgs and other imperial princes did not maintain direct relations with the foreign cultures of the East and West Indies, and were thus all the more dependent on the merchants and agents who brought the precious commodities into the Empire. By the time a jewel graced the hand of a prince it had behind it a long history of transfer and transformation. The present contribution is a first attempt to explore this history by illuminating the circulation of jewels in Europe, the role of jewellery merchants in acquiring the precious pieces and their itineraries between India and the Empire.

8 See Arthur MacGregor, Curiosity and Enlightenment. Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century (New Haven/London, 2007); Wilfried Seipel (ed.), Exotica. Portugals Entdeckungen im Spiegel fürstlicher Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Renaissance (Milan/Vienna, 2000); Dominik Collet, Die Welt in der Stube. Begegnungen mit Außereuropa in Kunstkammern der Frühen Neuzeit (Göttingen, 2007); Elisabeth Schei- cher, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Habsburger, ed. C. Brandstätter (Vienna/Zurich, 1979). 9 The idea of ‘connected history’ has been articulated from various corners of the historical profession. While historians such as Michael Werner speak of ‘Verflechtungs- geschichte’ or ‘histoire croisée’, and are mainly concerned with the phenomena of cultural transfer, work from the field of post-colonial studies also use the terms ‘shared’ or ‘divided history’. The term ‘connected history’, coined by Sanjay Subrahmanyam, is based on the idea of a transcultural history of relationships, which explores the multifarious cultural historical interconnections between India and Europe beyond the realm of economic exchange. On this, see Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Connected Histories: Notes towards a Reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia’, Modern Asian Studies 31, no. 3 (1997), 735–62; id., From the Tagus to the Ganges. Exploration in Connected History (Oxford/New York, 2005); id., Mughals and Franks. Explorations in Connected History (Oxford, 2005); Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann, ‘Vergleich, Transfer, Verflechtung. Der Ansatz der Histoire croisée und die Herausforderung des Transnationalen’, Geschichte und Gesell- schaft, 28 (2002), 607–36; Sebastian Conrad and Shalini Randeria, ‘Einleitung. Geteilte Geschichten—Europa in einer postkolonialen Welt’, in Conrad and Randeria (ed.), Jenseits des Eurozentrismus. Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften (Frankfurt/New York, 2002), 9–49. 10 On this, see Donald F. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe. Vol. I: The Century of Dis- covery (2 vols., Chicago/London, 1965), and Asia in the Making of Europe. Vol. II: A Century of Wonder (3 vols., Chicago/London, 1970–7); Anna Jackson and Amin Jaffer (ed.), Encoun- ters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe, 1500–1800 (London, 2004). aspects of material cultural in the empire 337

1. The Circulation of Jewels in Europe

A portion of the jewels belonging to the Habsburgs had doubtless already been in Europe for a very long time. This is particularly true of inherited pieces and those that came into the possession of the Habsburgs through marriage or pillage. One of the best-known examples of such a transfer of jewels is the history of the so-called Burgunderbeute or Burgundian booty.11 It is well known that Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, not only suffered a terrible rout at the hands of the Swiss Confederates at the battle of Grandson in 1476, but also lost part of his treasure. The Swiss sold the pieces they had captured on the battlefield as profitably as possible— an undertaking that took several decades. In 1502, the city of Basle, into whose possession four extraordinary jewels from the treasure had fallen, sought a buyer. After a protracted search they finally found a taker in the Fuggers. The sale of the four pieces to Jakob Fugger, head of the Fug- ger firm, was sealed in 1504.12 For a price of 40,20013 florins, Jakob Fugger acquired

1. a large pendant known, because of its three great table-cut balas rubies, as the Three Brethren (see illus. 4). Created before 1420, it had already belonged to the grandfather of Charles the Bold.14 2. the so-called Federlin (little feather), a hat pin. This was an arrow- shaped piece meant to hold two hat plumes, which was studded with diamonds, balas rubies and numerous pearls.15 3. the so-called Gürtelin (little garter) (see illus. 5). This was the knee band of the Order of the Garter, which the English king Edward IV had

11 See Florens Deuchler, Die Burgunderbeute. Inventar der Beutestücke aus den Schlach- ten von Grandson, Murten und Nancy, 1476–7 (Bern, 1963); Heinz Matile (ed.), Die Burgun- derbeute und Werke Burgundischer Hofkunst (Bern, 1969). 12 Deuchler, Burgunderbeute, 106–8 (bill of sale). 13 Norbert Lieb, Die Fugger und die Kunst im Zeitalter der hohen Renaissance (Munich, 1958), 137. 14 Thanks to the miniatures prepared in Basle for the sale of the jewel we have a relatively precise idea of its appearance. Apart from the balas rubies, it consisted of four large pearls and an unusually large point-cut diamond in the middle. See Deuchler, Burgun- derbeute, 123–4; Fritz Falk, Edelsteinschliff und Fassungsformen im späten Mittelalter und im 16. Jahrhundert. Studien zur Geschichte der Edelsteine und des Schmucks (Ulm, 1975), 31; Norbert Lieb, Die Fugger und die Kunst im Zeitalter der Spätgotik und der frühen Renais- sance (Munich, 1952), 83–4. 15 Deuchler, Burgunderbeute, 121. 338 kim siebenhüner

presented to Charles after his marriage to Margaret of York. The garter was set with balas rubies and rubies, pearls and many diamonds.16 4. The fourth piece was the White Rose, a jewel worn as a pendant on a chain and consisting of one large, irregular spinel in a gold setting on a double wreath of enamelled white petals.17

According to Norbert Lieb, Jakob Fugger already had Emperor Maximilian in mind as a potential buyer when he purchased the costly Burgundian jewels from Basle.18 The Federlin and the Gürtelin did in fact end up in Maximilian’s possession. Jakob Fugger first offered the emperor the jewels in 1507, but the latter hesitated for some time because of the exorbitant price. In 1513–14, the two jewels finally came to Maximilian for 38,000 florins in the context of a loan from the Fuggers.19 The transfer of the jewels from Charles the Bold’s Burgundian treasure to Emperor Maximilian I via the Swiss Confederates, the city of Basle and Jakob Fugger illustrates in exemplary fashion the way precious objects circulated in Europe. Some pieces were decades old. Handed down from one generation to the next, they changed owners across Europe through death, marriage, gift or booty, and passed through the hands of booty-tak- ers, pawnbrokers or merchant intermediaries such as the Fuggers. In well- documented cases, we can reconstruct a veritable itinerary for individual jewels. And the story of the Federlin and Gürtelin by no means ended with their sale to Maximilian. They did not remain in the emperor’s possession for long. Financial hardship soon forced him to give the Federlin in pawn to Jakob Villinger, his treasurer, who in turn pawned the piece to an Augs- burg merchant in 1526.20 The Three Brothers, in contrast, remained with the Fuggers from 1504 until the 1540s. Anton Fugger, who succeeded Jakob Fugger as head of the firm in 1526, offered the jewel to Emperor Charles V and Ferdinand I on several occasions, but in vain. He refused to sell the piece to Sultan Suleiman I because he did not wish for the jewel to fall into

16 Deuchler, Burgunderbeute, 122–3. 17 Deuchler, Burgunderbeute, 124–5; Falk, Edelsteinschliff, 36; Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Spätgotik, 83–4. 18 Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Spätgotik, 84. 19 The Fuggers agreed to lend the emperor 30,000 florins on the condition that he purchased the Burgundian ‘Feder’ for the same price; the ‘Gürtlin’ was sold for an additional 8,000. Cf. Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Spätgotik, 81–6, and Erich Egg, ‘Maximilian und die Kunst’, in Ausstellung Maximilian I, ed. Egg, 93–106, esp. 103–4. Deuchler points to two different versions of the story of the Federlin: Burgunderbeute, 122. According to these, the jewel was either broken up or reached Maximilian whole. 20 Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Spätgotik, 85. aspects of material cultural in the empire 339 non-Christian hands, as Anton’s nephew Hans Jakob Fugger reported in 1555.21 In 1545 the jewel was finally sold to Henry VIII. Once again, a jewel had wandered halfway across Europe with the help of middlemen.22

2. The Fuggers as Jewel Dealers

These jewels which had already been in existence for some time cannot, however, account for the wealth of precious objects documented in the inventories of European rulers. Rather, large numbers of new pieces were created.23 Numerous goldsmiths were active at the various courts; Emperor Maximilian and his wife employed not only the court goldsmith Lukas Siebenburger of Memmingen, but also commissioned pieces from many renowned goldsmiths in Venice, Augsburg, Ulm and Nuremberg.24 Similarly, Emperor Frederick III (1415–93) had hired goldsmiths and gem cutters; later, under Rudolf II (1552–1612), well-known court workshops were established in Prague.25 The precious stones cut there had to be imported to Europe, however. Diamonds, pearls, rubies and sapphires came from the Far East or the New World. Once in Europe, they had to be distributed, processed and sold by gem dealers, agents, jewellers and goldsmiths. Thus the reference to their circulation in the Old Empire does not answer the question of the jewels’ origins. The jewel trade points instead beyond the borders of the Empire.26 A network of merchants and jewel

21 Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Renaissance, 137–8, 395–7. 22 On the subsequent fate of the Three Brothers, see Deuchler, Burgunderbeute, 123–4; and Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Renaissance, 138, 395–6. The 1606 inventory of the Eng- lish crown jewels still lists the Three Brothers. In 1623 King James I sent the stones, now reset, with his son Charles on his matrimonial embassy to Spain. The Three Brothers have been considered lost since that time. 23 Hackenbroch, Renaissance Jewellery. On production in South Germany, see ibid. esp. 111–81. 24 Egg, ‘Maximilian und die Kunst’, 103–4. 25 On contacts to goldsmiths, see Egg, ‘Maximilian und die Kunst’, 103–4; and on Fre- derick III’s gem-cutters, see Hermann Fillitz, ‘Kaiser Friedrich III. und die Bildende Kunst’, in Ausstellung Friedrich III, Kaiserresidenz Wiener Neustadt [ed. Peter Weninger] (Vienna, 1966), 186–91. On Rudolf II’s jewellery workshops in Prague, see Rudolf Distelberger, ‘Die Kunstkammerstücke’, in Prag um 1600. Kunst und Kultur am Hofe Rudolfs II (Freren [Ems- land], 1988), 437–573, and id., Die Kunst des Steinschnitts. Prunkgefässe, Kameen und Com- messi aus der Kunstkammer, ed. Wilfried Seipel (Milan/Vienna, 2002), 310. 26 The early modern jewel trade has been studied far less than many other branches of business. Cf. the study by Otto Mugler, despite its uncritical treatment of the sources, ‘Edelsteinhandel im Mittelalter und im 16. Jahrhundert mit Excursen über den Levante- und 340 kim siebenhüner traders, experts and middlemen in different sites of the gem trade inside and outside Europe saw to the procurement and distribution of the precious goods. It was no accident that the Burgundian jewels reached Maxi- milian I via the Fugger family. The Fuggers had inserted themselves into the international jewel trade, and their activities provide insights into this otherwise highly secretive business.27 Jakob Fugger (1459–1525) and his nephew Anton (1493–1560) had cemented the fortunes of the ‘Fuggers of the Lily’. The firm rose through mining and banking rather than the jewel trade, however.28 Since the late fifteenth century, the Fuggers had been buying up silver and copper mines above all in the Tyrol, Silesia and northern Hungary, in what is now Slova- kia. The enormous profits from silver and copper enabled them to enter international finance early on. The Fugger bank became one of the most

asiatischen Handel überhaupt’ (Diss. Univ. of Munich, 1928), as well as Godehard Lenzen, Produktions- und Handelsgeschichte des Diamanten (Berlin, 1966). For the eighteenth century, see Gedalia Yogev, Diamonds and Coral, Anglo-Dutch Jews and Eighteenth-Century Trade (Leicester, 1978), and Harry Bernstein, The Brazilian Diamond in Contracts, Contra- band and Capital (Lanham, NY/London, 1986). On the diamond trade between Madras and London, see Søren Mentz, The English Gentleman Merchant at Work. Madras and the City of London, 1660–1740 (Copenhagen, 2005). For a chronologically wide-ranging and interdis- ciplinary overview, see Eddy Vleeschdrager, Diamonds. Reality and Passion (Alleur-Liège, 1997). On the early modern trade in precious stones, see Mark Häberlein, ‘Edelsteine’, in Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit, vol. 3 (Stuttgart, 2006), cols. 24–6. A number of essays on the subject have appeared in recent years. See Oscar Gelderblom, ‘The Governance of Early Mod- ern Trade: The Case of Hans Thijs, 1556–1611’, Entreprise and Society 4, no. 4 (2003), 606–39. On the Frankfurt jewel business of the De Briers, see Gabriele Marcussen-Gwiazda, ‘Gold und Diamanten’, in Glaube, Macht, Kunst. Antwerpen—Frankfurt um 1600, ed. Frank Berger (Frankfurt a.M., 2005), 89–105, and ead., ‘Die Frankfurter Juwelenhandlung de Briers im 1. Drittel des 17. Jahrhunderts’, in Brücke zwischen den Völkern—Zur Geschichte der Frank- furter Messe, ed. Rainer Koch (3 vols., Frankfurt a.M., 1991), ii.122–8, as well as Vincent Demont, ‘Technique comptable et espace marchand: une joailerie francfortoise du premier XVIIe siècle’, Bulletin d’Information de la Mission Historique Francaise en Allemagne, 41 (2005), 301–15. 27 The key works on the Fuggers’ involvement in the jewel trade are Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Spätgotik and id., Fugger und Kunst in der Renaissance, on which I base the following remarks. See also Georg Lill, Hans Fugger, 1531–98, und die Kunst. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Spätrenaissance in Süddeutschland (Leipzig, 1908). For an excellent overview of the history of the Fuggers, see Mark Häberlein, Die Fugger, Geschichte einer Augsburger Familie, 1367–1650 (Stuttgart, 2006). See also his discussion of the literature and suggestions for further reading. Of the extensive studies by Götz Freiherr von Pölnitz I would like to mention the following: Anton Fugger (3 vols. in 5, Tübingen, 1958–86), and Jakob Fugger, Kaiser, Kirche und Kapital in der oberdeutschen Renaissance (2 vols., Tübingen, 1949–51); for a summary, see his Die Fugger (2nd edn, Frankfurt a. M., 1960). On the Fuggers’ activities on the Iberian Peninsula, see Hermann Kellenbenz, Die Fugger in Spanien und Portugal bis 1560. Ein Großunternehmen des 16. Jahrhunderts (3 vols., Munich, 1990). 28 Häberlein, Fugger, 36–68; Pölnitz, Die Fugger, 41–94. aspects of material cultural in the empire 341 important lenders to the Habsburgs. Maximilian I, Charles V and Ferdi- nand I financed diplomatic journeys, weddings, coronations and wars with Fugger money.29 The emerging Fugger business network spread all across Europe. In 1525 the company boasted offices in numerous cities, including Augsburg (the seat of the firm), Nuremberg, Frankfurt am Main, Cologne, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Vienna, Venice, Lyons and Seville.30 Although jewellery and precious stones comprised only a small part of the goods in which the Fuggers traded, the jewel trade was closely intertwined with banking. Jewels served as currency, as securities for loans and as pledges. Importing gemstones was a risky business that promised high profits but also demanded high liquidity, which made it attractive for the merchant house. Given the close ties between the Fuggers and the Habsburg rulers, it is not surprising that they supplied jewels both to the house of Hab- sburg, and also to numerous other imperial princes. As early as 1493, on the occasion of Maximilian’s marriage to his second wife Bianca Maria Sforza, the Fuggers procured pieces of jewellery for the emperor in Venice.31 Around 1500 the imperial family again purchased jewels in Venice through the Fuggers: three cut and polished hyacinths set in gold, for which Jakob Fugger was paid by the emperor’s confidant Mat- thäus Lang.32 In 1505 the Fuggers sold two diamonds to Emperor Maxi- milian for 10,000 florins in the context of a loan.33 Deliveries of jewels to King Ferdinand and his wife Anne are also documented. In August 1542 the Fuggers purchased a jewel for Ferdinand for a price of 760 florins. An account from the court also reveals that Ferdinand paid 2,000 talers to the Fuggers in 1546 ‘pour ung balaix avec une perle en 850 escus et ung dia- mant avec ung ruby en 1 150 escus’,34 that is, for a jewel with a balas ruby and a pearl as well as an additional piece with a diamond and a ruby. Apart from the Habsburgs, the Fuggers’ clients included many other princes within and outside the Empire. Deliveries of jewels went to George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony (1471–1539) and the prince-bishop of Trent, Cardinal Bernhard von Cles (1485–1539), for example.35 In 1501, the

29 Kellenbenz, Fugger in Spanien, ii.11–17; Häberlein, Fugger, 36–96; Pölnitz, Die Fugger, 71–93, 117–35, 179–227. 30 Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Spätgotik, 65–7; Häberlein, Fugger, 81. 31 Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Spätgotik, 78, 353–4. 32 Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Spätgotik, 78, 353. 33 Max Jansen, Jakob Fugger der Reiche (Leipzig, 1910), 205–6. 34 Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Renaissance, 135, 393–4. 35 In 1520, Jakob Fugger arranged the purchase of pearls as well as velvets and silks from Venice, Florence and Genoa for the duke: see Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Spätgotik, 77, 342 kim siebenhüner

Hungarian king Vladislas II (1456–1516) purchased two gemstones set in gold, including a diamond, valued at 1,000 and 4,000 florins respectively, via the Hungarian Fugger-Thurzo company, along with gold brocades and silk and woollen stuffs. Two years later, in 1503, he paid 3,000 ducats through the Fuggers for a necklace acquired from Genoa for his wife.36 The Habsburgs and other imperial princes thus appear in the sources as both principals and customers, while the Fuggers assumed varying roles in the jewel trade. On the one hand they made purchases for their customers in the internationally renowned centres of jewellery production or offered financial services, for example by arranging to pay for the jewels. On the other hand, they also commissioned work from gem-cutters and goldsmiths. Thus the Augsburg account books for 1539 show that a master Hans Baurenfeindt was paid some 395 florins to cut an 18-carat diamond.37 That same year, the Augsburg goldsmith Engelbrecht Bücker received 2 florins and 4 crowns for setting three rubies.38 These examples show that the Fuggers, either on their own behalf or on behalf of third parties, commissioned gem-cutters and goldsmiths to cut, polish and set precious stones and fashion them into items of jewellery.39 Finally, the Fuggers also acted as suppliers and buyers of gemstones, the raw material needed by jewellers and goldsmiths. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and other precious stones as well as pearls had to be imported via the relevant international ports of Venice, Antwerp and Lisbon.40 The Fuggers maintained agents in each of these cities temporarily or permanently, which allowed them, unlike local goldsmiths, to trade not just in finished jewellery but also in polished and rough precious stones. With the discovery of the sea route to India in 1499, Lisbon and Antwerp began to compete with Venice, previously the most important transhipment point for goods from the Far East. Nevertheless, during the

353, 78. In 1537, the prince-bishop of Trent, Bernhard Cardinal von Cles, paid the Fuggers 102 florins and 15 crowns for two gold chains that the Fuggers commissioned for him in Augsburg and sent to the Tyrol: Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Renaissance, 134. 36 Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Spätgotik, 77, 353. 37 Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Renaissance, 135. 38 Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Renaissance, 135, 393, 507. There is no record of Engel- brecht Bücker (Pickart) in the systematic list of Augsburg goldsmiths. Helmut Seling, Die Kunst der Augsburger Goldschmiede, 1529–1868. Meister—Marken—Werke (3 vols. and one suppl. vol., Munich, 1980–94). 39 This organization of labour, and indeed putting-out system, is clearer in the case of the Frankfurt jewel dealers De Briers. See Marcussen-Gwiazda, ‘Gold und Diamanten’, in Glaube, Macht, Kunst, 96–8. 40 Häberlein, ‘Edelsteine’, 24–5; Mugler, ‘Edelsteinhandel im Mittelalter.’ aspects of material cultural in the empire 343 first half of the sixteenth century Venice remained a centre of the trade in gemstones, which were transported to Europe overland via Persia and the Ottoman Empire and across the Mediterranean.41 The rise of Lisbon and Antwerp added to the European centres of gem imports. A portion of precious stones were now transported by sea and arrived at Portuguese and Dutch ports. The Fuggers had established an agent at Lisbon in 1505 to deal mainly with the spice and pepper trade. In the 1520s, this area of the business shifted to Seville and Antwerp.42 As a centre of the trade in pearls and gemstones, however, the Portuguese capital could not be ignored, so that in the decades that followed the Fuggers repeatedly sent representatives to Lisbon to purchase precious stones and jewellery. A good example of this has come down to us in the 1551 correspondence of the Fugger agent Johann von Schüren.43 In that year, Schüren met with Jobst Veit, the man- ager of the Fuggers’ business in Lisbon at the time, and reported on his purchases of precious stones for Anton Fugger. Jobst Veit had bought a 22-carat diamond and two diamond rings, a large diamond of 67½ carats for 9,600 ducats and 16 smaller diamonds totalling 39½ carats. He had paid 14,561 ducats in all.44 During his sojourn in Lisbon, Schüren went to look at the jewels of a certain Nuno da Cunha, probably a jewellery dealer. The pieces included a pearl, a large table-cut diamond and a ruby set in an Indian ring. Their value was 30,000 ducats. In the end, however, they failed to reach an agreement since Anton Fugger decided not to purchase the jewels.45 Two years later, in 1553, in contrast, Fugger instructed his agent in Lisbon (now Thomas Müller) to purchase smaller and larger diamonds, rings and other jewellery for up to 2,500 ducats. He admonished Müller not to buy from middlemen he did not know in Lisbon, but only from a dealer who imported directly from India.46 This piece of information tells us two things. First of all, in the maritime centres of the gem trade the Fuggers were dependent on jewellery dealers. Unlike their South German competitors Welser, Herwart, Imhof

41 Mugler, ‘Edelsteinhandel im Mittelalter’, 119. 42 Kellenbenz, Fugger in Spanien, i.49–61. 43 Kellenbenz, Fugger in Spanien, i.364–5; Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Renaissance, 136–7. 44 Kellenbenz, Fugger in Spanien, i.365. 45 Kellenbenz, Fugger in Spanien, i.365; Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Renaissance, 136–7. 46 Lieb, Fugger und Kunst in der Renaissance, 394. 344 kim siebenhüner or Hirschvogel, who were also active in the gem trade,47 the Fuggers did not have their own agent in India. They thus had to resort to import traders when they wished to purchase precious stones. Secondly, Lisbon was also only a staging post on the itinerary of the gemstones that the Fuggers brought into the German Empire.

3. The Origins of the Precious Stones

Merchants and agents in the gem trade were involved in an international flow of luxury commodities. On the early modern world map, the sources of precious stones and pearls extended from the New World and Africa to the Far East. Some raw materials were mined in Europe: in the sixteenth century, rock crystal and amethysts were found in many regions including the Alps, Bohemia and the Palatinate, and people searched for opals in Hungary, amber on the Baltic and coral in the Mediterranean.48 Nev- ertheless, precious stones and pearls were found largely outside Europe. The most important pearl fisheries were in the Persian Gulf, off Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela.49 Emeralds were found on the African Red Sea coast and in South America, above all in present-day Colombia.50 Sapphires came from Ceylon, and from the Malabar Coast and the Vijayanagara Empire in southern India.51 Rubies were also found in Ceylon and Vijayanagara, but the largest resources

47 Hermann Kellenbenz, ‘Die fremden Kaufleute auf der iberischen Halbinsel vom 15. Jahrhundert bis zum Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Fremde Kaufleute auf der iberischen Halbinsel, ed. Kellenbenz (Cologne/Vienna, 1970), 265–376; Mark Häberlein, Brüder, Freunde und Betrüger. Soziale Beziehungen, Normen und Konflikte in der Augsburger Kauf- mannschaft um die Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1998), 123–5, 284; Christa Schaper, Die Hirschvogel von Nürnberg und ihr Handelshaus (Nuremberg, 1973). 48 E. Allan Jobbins, ‘Sources of Gemstones in the Renaissance’, in Princely Magnificence, 12–19, here 15, 18. On the sources of amber and coral, see Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Travels in India, trans. and ed. William Crooke and Valentine Ball (2 vols., New Delhi, 1977, repr. 2000), ii.104–8. 49 Ludovico Varthema, Reisen im Orient, trans. and ed. Folker Reichert (Sigmaringen, 1996), 115. English edn: The travels of Ludovico de Varthema in Egypt, Syria, Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix, in Persia, India, and Ethiopia, A.D. 1503 to 1508, trans. John Winter Jones, ed. George Percy Badger (London, 1863); Duarte Barbosa, The Book of Duarte Barbosa. An Account of the Countries Bordering on the Indian Ocean and their Inhabitants, trans. and ed. Mansel Longworth Dames (2 vols., Nendeln, Liechtenstein 1967 [reprint of the 1918 edition]), ii.115–17; Tavernier, Travels, ii.84–91. 50 Jobbins, ‘Sources of Gemstones’, 16; Barbosa, Book of Duarte Barbosa, ii.226. 51 Varthema, Reisen im Orient, 192–4; Barbosa, Book of Duarte Barbosa, ii.116, 222–3. aspects of material cultural in the empire 345 were in the kingdom of Pegu (now Myanmar).52 Diamonds were found almost exclusively in India.53 Thus when Anton Fugger instructed his agent in Lisbon to buy diamonds from a trader who imported from India, it was because of the well-known diamond deposits there. The deposits in Brazil were only discovered in the early eighteenth century, and those in South Africa only in the mid- nineteenth century.54 In the sixteenth century, diamonds and other precious stones were found in the inland regions of the Vijayanagara Empire and in the Deccan, where the mining of and trade in these precious commodities were largely in the hands of local merchants. Our information on diamond mining comes in part from the detailed accounts of Jean- Baptiste Tavernier (1605–89), a French jewel dealer who travelled to India several times between the 1640s and the 1660s.55 He described how native merchants and entrepreneurs acquired licences to mine precious stones from their ruler, paying him a daily fee and a portion of their profits.56 The stones they found were sold on to other gem dealers and jewellers either

52 Varthema, Reisen im Orient, 211; Barbosa, Book of Duarte Barbosa, ii.160, 217–19; Cesare Federici and Gasparo Balbi, Viaggi alle Indie orientali, ed. Olga Pinto (Rome, 1962), 54–5, 227. 53 Lenzen, Produktions- und Handelsgeschichte des Diamanten, 32–5; Tavernier, Tra- vels, ii.41–69. Apart from the Indian resources, the only place diamonds were found, in small amounts, was Borneo. See James C. Boyajian, Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs, 1580–1640 (Baltimore/London, 1993), 69. 54 Mildred Berman, ‘The Location of the Diamond-Cutting Industry’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 61, no. 2 (1971), 316–28 at 317; Bernstein, Brazilian Diamond; Vleeschdrager, Diamonds, 99–138. 55 Tavernier, Travels. Charles Joret’s biography, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, écuyer Baron d’Aubonne, chambellan du Grand Électeur, d’aprés des documents nouveaux et inédits (Paris, 1886), remains the most systematic study of Tavernier. Later essays are devoted to more detailed questions. See Charles Boxer, ‘Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Controversial Huguenot Traveller and Trader, 1605–89’, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 24 (1985), 202–9; S. Asscher, ‘Jean Baptiste Tavernier’, Spiegel historiael: maandblad voor geschiedenis en archeologie, 12, no. 3 (1977), 137–141, and Stephane Yerasimos, ‘L’ aven- ture au temps de Louis XIV: Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’, L’ Histoire, 37 (1981), 64–71. Tavernier claimed to be the first European to have travelled to and reported on the diamond mines of Golconda, but he was mistaken in this. William Methold already wrote of his visit to the mine at Kollur in the early seventeenth century. See ‘Relations of the Kingdom of Gol- conda, and other neighbouring nations . . . by Master William Methold (1625)’, in Relations of Golconda in the Early Seventeenth Century, ed. William H. Moreland (London, 1931), 1–49, at 30–2. Other autobiographical texts by European jewel dealers in India have survived alongside Tavernier’s travel account. See Federici and Balbi, Viaggi alle Indie orientali, and above all Jacques de Coutre, Andanzas asiáticas, ed. Eddy Stols et al. (Madrid, 1991). See also George D. Winius, ‘Jewel Trading in Portuguese India in the XVI and XVII Centuries’, Indica, 25 (1988), 15–34. 56 Tavernier, Travels, ii.46–7. 346 kim siebenhüner rough or polished. Tavernier described precisely how Indian diamond cutters worked and how the stones were sold to dealers from abroad.57 One evening, he recounted, an Indian merchant had called upon him at his lodgings. After approaching him politely, the jewel dealer offered him a number of ruby rings. Tavernier indicated that the stones were rather small and that he was interested in larger ones. He did purchase one ring, however, in the hope of being offered something better.58 In fact, once the people around them had departed, the trader ‘removed his headdress and untwisted his locks. . . . Then I observed a small rag appearing amidst his hair, in which there was concealed a diamond, weighing 48½ of our carats . . .59 The merchant left this large diamond for his consideration. The next day, after he had assured himself of the quality of the stone, Tavernier met the dealer again and purchased the gem. This episode underlines one of the many possibilities for the transfer of Indian gemstones into the hands of European jewel dealers. Tavernier travelled personally to the source of the stones to buy a diamond that he later sold for ‘a fair profit’ to a Dutchman in Surat.60 European merchants interested in precious stones did not necessarily have to travel to the mines, however. In the sixteenth century, gems and jewels were traded in large numbers in cities such as Vijayanagar (the capital of the empire of the same name), Goa and other towns on the Malabar Coast. Duarte Barbosa, who lived in Cananor between 1500 and 1516–17 as an agent in the service of the Portuguese government and penned one of the era’s most precise accounts of India, described the city of Vijayanagar as a lively centre of trade, whose streets were filled with Hindu, Muslim, Jewish and Christian merchants and where precious gems and pearls not just from the immediate surroundings but also from Ceylon, Pegu and Hormuz were assembled and sold.61 Other travellers told of the thriving jewel trade in Cambaya,62 Goa63 and the cities of the Coromandel Coast.64 As we have learnt, the Fuggers had no agent of their own in India in those days. Other South German firms active in the jewel trade did estab-

57 Tavernier, Travels, ii.50–1. 58 Tavernier, Travels, ii.50. 59 Tavernier, Travels, ii.51. 60 ‘I earned a fair profit from the transaction’: Tavernier, Travels, ii.51. 61 Barbosa, Book of Duarte Barbosa, i.202–3, 226–7. 62 Varthema, Reisen im Orient, 124; Barbosa, Book of Duarte Barbosa, i.142; see also Claude Markovitz (ed.), A History of Modern India, 1480–1950 (London, 2002), 20. 63 On the role of Goa in the sixteenth century, see Nuno Vassallo e Silva, ‘Jewels for the Great Mughal: Goa as a Centre of the Gem Trade in the Orient’, Jewellery Studies, 10 (2004), 41–51. 64 Markovitz (ed.), History, 21. aspects of material cultural in the empire 347 lish their own agents there. From 1520 until his death in 1528 or 1529, Georg Pock worked as an agent for the Nuremberg firm of Hirschvogel in Goa, which served as the base for his purchases of precious stones in Vijayanagara, among other business.65 Six years later, in 1526, the firm of Herwart engaged Jörg Imhof as their representative in India.66 In the years 1526–8 Imhof bought many diamonds, rubies, garnets and pearls, some rough and some already set, in Goa, Cananor and Cochin.67 In 1534 he arranged for another German in India, Hans Schwertzer, who was buying precious stones for the Welsers, to take some of the stones he had acquired back with him. Schwertzer indeed transported the stones to Europe and handed them over to Hans Welser in Augsburg.68 This illustrates another variant of jewel transfers. The precious stones came into the possession of the Welsers via an agent travelling by sea from India to Europe, passing through Lisbon. And it is not surprising that Hans Welser sold the precious goods soon thereafter to the house of Habsburg: The purchaser was none other than Emperor Charles V.69 The question of the origins of the jewels takes us from the circulation of gems in Europe and from merchants and jewel dealers such as the Fug- gers or Welsers to India and back to Europe. The representatives of South German trading houses bought precious stones in the centres of the gem trade or, if they had an agent stationed in India, imported directly from the Deccan, Vijayanagara or the coastal towns of the subcontinent. They turned the stones over to gem-cutters and goldsmiths to be fashioned into jewellery, and acted as suppliers and brokers to the imperial princes. In addition to the merchants and trade agents on the European side and the mine operators, diamond hunters and jewel dealers in India, a wide variety of persons could be involved in the transfer of these valuable commodities. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was a traveller and independent jewel dealer who brought diamonds and other precious stones to Europe without

65 On the firm of Hirschvogel, see Christa Schaper, Die Hirschvogel von Nürnberg und ihr Handelshaus (Nuremberg, 1973); on Pock’s activities in India, see Hedwig Kömmerling- Fitzler, Der Nürnberger Kaufmann Georg Pock (+ 1528/9) in Portugiesisch-Indien und im Edelsteinland Vijanayanagara’, Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg, 55 (1967), 137–84. On the agent’s purchases of gemstones, see ibid. esp. 166–73. 66 Mugler, ‘Edelsteinhandel im Mittelalter’, 87–95; Pius Malekandathil, The Germans, the Portuguese and India (Münster, 1999), 67–70. 67 Mugler, ‘Edelsteinhandel im Mittelalter’, 87–91; Malekandathil, Germans, Portuguese and India, 68. 68 Mugler, ‘Edelsteinhandel im Mittelalter’, 91–2. On the conflict that arose over this co-operation between the firms of Herwart and Welser, see ibid.; on Schwertzer, see also Malekandathil, Germans, Protuguese and India, 70–1. 69 Mugler, ‘Edelsteinhandel im Mittelalter’, 93. 348 kim siebenhüner middlemen, not by sea but overland via such stations as Kandahar, Isfa- han, Hormuz and Aleppo. Aleppo was another centre of the jewel trade. The Ulm merchant Hans Ulrich Krafft, for example, bought many gemstones there in the hope of making a tidy profit by reselling them in Ger- many.70 Emperor Rudolf II chose a different route to purchase the jewels for his crown, which was finished in 1602: On the one hand, he instructed his ambassador in Spain, Johann Khevenhüller (1538–1606), to keep an eye out for large rough diamonds, and on the other he sent the Prague-based gem-cutter and jeweller David from Brussels to Rome to buy an unusual diamond from the Jesuits.71 The examples cited here point to a business that was as discreet as it was widely ramified. Frequently, it was individuals to whom the Hab- sburgs entrusted their search for jewels, who provided them with precious stones and who in turn selected the contacts and confidants upon whom they could reply for their gem purchases. The geographical paths along which the precious commodities reached the Habsburgs were accordingly diverse: They could pass through Antwerp and Lisbon, Venice or Rome, around the Cape or Persia and the Ottoman Empire as well as numerous points in between. The picture we have of the social and economic transfer practices upon which the possession of jewels depended is still incomplete and preliminary. Further research is needed if we wish to understand the material culture of these precious commodities in the Holy Roman Empire. Nev- ertheless, we can say for the time being that the history of material culture points to the links between the Empire and the major trading cities of Europe as well as the nascent global world. The trade on which the Habsburgs relied for their jewels extended far beyond the borders of the Empire. Through the objects, their routes and the actors who transported them, the Habsburgs, like the other imperial princes, were connected with the world outside Europe. The material culture that surrounded the imperial princes existed in not just a European, but also a global context.

70 See Kim Siebenhüner, ‘Les joyaux du souk. Marchandises globales, pratiques marchandes et espaces commerciaux à Alep à l’époque moderne’, in Lieux, places, espaces. Pratiques marchandes en Méditerranée, ed. Wolfgang Kaiser (forthcoming); Hans Ulrich Krafft , Ein deutscher Kaufmann des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts. Hans Ulrich Krafft’s Den- kwürdigkeiten, ed. Adolf Cohn (Göttingen, 1862), 134–46, 172. 71 Distelberg, ‘Kunstkammerstücke’, in Prag um 1600, 449. Portraiture at the Imperial Court in the First Half of the 17th Century

Friedrich Polleross

It is well known that in the process of growing princely representation from the second half of the 16th century onwards, painting acquired a more and more important role at the Habsburg courts as well.1 Neverthe- less, neither in the Spanish nor in the Austrian branch of the family was this development continuous: there were steps back and interruptions. The situation of portraiture (also including graphics and sculpture), which had a long tradition going back to the 14th century, is especially complicated, because this form of representation always oscillated between political and artistic functions.2 Therefore it will be useful to have a closer look to the portraiture at the Habsburg courts in Austria in the first half of the 17th century, a period which is much less studied than the time before and after.3 In my view we can distinguish three different phases, which do not follow a stylistic logic and therefore might be determined by political rather than by artistic causes.

1 Hugh Trevor-Roper, Princes and Artists. Patronage and Ideology at Four Habsburg Courts, 1517–1633 (2nd edn, London, 1991), 27–152; Jonathan Brown, Kings & Connoisseurs. Collecting Art in Seventeenth Century Europe (Princeton, NJ, 1995), 97–183; Velázquez— Rubens—Lorrain. Malerei am Hofe Philipps IV., exh. cat. (Bonn, 1999); El arte en la corte de los Archiduques Alberto de Austria e Isabel Clara Eugenia, 1598–1633. Un reino imaginado, exh. cat. (Madrid, 1999); Renate Schreiber, ‛Ein galeria nach meinem humor’. Erzherzog Leopold Wilhelm (Vienna/Milan, 2004); Andrés Úbeda de los Cobos (ed.), Paintings for the Planet King. Philip IV and the Buen Retiro Palace (Madrid/ London, 2005). 2 See, e.g., Allan Ellenius (ed.), Iconography, Propaganda, and Legitimation. The Origins of the Modern State in Europe, 13th to 18th Centuries (Oxford/New York, 1998); Andreas Köst- ler and Ernst Seidl (ed.), Bildnis und Image. Das Porträt zwischen Intention und Rezeption (Cologne, 1998); Jonathan Brown (ed.), Velázquez, Rubens y Van Dyck. Pintores cortesanos del siglo XVII, exh. cat. (Madrid, 1999); Andreas Beyer et al. (ed.), Bildnis, Fürst und Territo- rium (Munich/Berlin, 2000); Anne-Lise Desmas (ed.), Les portraits du pouvoir (Rome/Paris, 2003); El retrato español del Greco a Picasso, exh. cat. (Madrid, 2004); Thomas W. Gaeht- gens and Nicole Hochner (ed.), L’image du roi de François Ier à Louis XIV (Paris, 2006). 3 Günther Heinz, ‘Studien zur Porträtmalerei an den Höfen der österreichischen Erb- lande’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, 59 (1963), 99–224; id. and Karl Schütz, Porträtgalerie zur Geschichte Österreichs von 1400 bis 1800 (Vienna, 1976); Friedrich Polleross, ‘ “Majesté” contre “Sainteté” dans les portraits des Habsbourgs au début du XVIIe siècle’, in Gaehtgens and Hochner (ed.), L’image du roi, 33–55. 350 friedrich polleross

Rudolf II and the Foundations of Baroque representation

A survey of portraiture at the Habsburg courts in the first half of the 17th century has to begin with the Emperor in Prague, and not only out of courtesy. This may seem astonishing, because he is most famous for some works of art of ‘a personal or private nature, and even occasionally of a seemingly bizarre aspect’.4 Rudolf himself is said to have been a ‘lifelong hypochondriac, subject to bouts of melancholia’, and to have lived especially in his last years in ‘self-imposed immurement’ with his collections in the Hradčany.5 But Rudolf was also the first prince in northern Europe to set his collections in a really representative architecture with an oval staircase, which had its only parallel in that of the Pope in the Quirinal palace.6 And it was at Rudolf ’s court that artists formulated some types of portraiture in a way which is said to be typically baroque. All this happened in the first years of the century, and it was probably also not by accident that at the same time Hans von Aachen was used by his prince as a political ambassador in the same way as Rubens later.7 The most expensive and very secret commission of the Emperor was the new crown, created in Prague in 1602 by Jan Vermeyen as a formal and iconographic visualization of the power of Rudolf II in the Empire and in the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary.8 In my opinion this must also be seen in the context of the political and ceremonial rivalry with the kingdom of England and British imperial ambitions. Thus Rudolf ’s potential consort Elisabeth I was already depicted in the famous Armada- portrait of 1588 with a globe and the closed imperial crown ‘used by the Tudors to reflect their equality of status with the Holy Roman Emperors’.9

4 Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Court, Cloister and City. The Art and Culture of Central Europe, 1450–1800 (London, 1995), 192. 5 Radu Florescu, ‘The Hradchany during the Period of Rudolph II: Site and Seat of Numerous Powers, 1552–1612’, in Lugares de Poder. Europa séculos XV a XX, ed. Gérard Sabatier and Rita Costa Gomes (Lisbon, 1998), 158–83, at 164, 170. 6 Monika Brunner, ‘Päpstliches “Capriccio” und kaiserliche “Representatio”. Das Ovaltreppenhaus der rudolfinischen Kunstkammern als Form habsburgischer Architek- turpolitik’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 60 (1997), 514–29. 7 Eliška Fučíková, ‘Die Prager Residenz unter Rudolf II., seinen Vorgängern und Nach- folgern’, in Rudolf II. und Prag. Kaiserlicher Hof und Residenzstadt als kulturelles und geisti- ges Zentrum Mitteleuropas, ed. Fučíková, exh. cat. (Prague etc., 1997), 2–71, at 39. 8 Rudolf Distelberger, ‘Die Kunstkammerstücke’, Prag um 1600, exh. cat. (2 vols., Vienna, 1988), i.437–530, at 449–50. 9 Roy Strong, The Tudor and Stuart Monarchy. Pageantry, Painting, Iconography (3 vols., Woodbridge, 1995–8), 13, no. 11; id., Gloriana. The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (New York, 1987), 104–5, 130–3. portraiture at the imperial court 351

Indeed it was at that time that Rudolf began to think about new regalia, and precisely in 1603 the court at Prague reacted very nervously about the Caesar Augustus medal for the crowning of James I, which again disturbed the ceremonial primacy of the Emperor among the monarchs of Europe.10 Because the crown was a clearly representative-propagandistic enterprise (‘eine deutlich repräsentativ-propagandistische Tat’),11 it is not surprising that Rudolf`s court painter Hans von Aachen created the corresponding new state portrait with the Rudolfine crown. The importance of this painting is obvious, not only because it is the sole contemporary lifesize portrait of the Emperor which is known today,12 but also because it stands at the beginnings of baroque Habsburg state portraiture.13 In his first drawing, Aachen presents the Emperor with armour and military baton standing in front of a ceremonial table upon which the new crown is displayed.14 The composition combines the traditional 16th- century full-figure portrait used by artists at the Habsburg courts15 with a depiction of the crown on a table, probably painted for the first time in the portrait of Rudolf ’s mother Maria as a widowed empress by Juan Pantoja de la Cruz in the 1580s.16 Aachen‘s final version of 1603 is known through a copy, which was very likely sent to the Spanish King Philip III or the Duke of Alba, and is now in the Wellington Museum17 (see illus. 1). We can see some significant changes in the final portrait: the position of the feet is more opened and therefore more dynamic; the table is no longer parallel, but rather seen from an angle, producing a stronger sense of space; and the crown is now actively grasped.18 The crown itself is now

10 Heinz Duchhardt, ‘Imperium und Regna im Zeitalter Ludwigs XIV.’, Historische Zeit- schrift, 232 (1981), 555–81, at 560–1, 575. 11 Karl Vocelka, Die politische Propaganda Kaiser Rudolfs II., 1576–1612 (Vienna, 1981), 307. 12 Lars Olof Larsson, ‘Die Porträts Kaiser Rudolfs II.’, Rudolf II. und Prag, 122–9, at 124–5. 13 Friedrich Polleross, ‘Kaiser, König, Landesfürst: Habsburgische “Dreifaltigkeit” im Porträt’, in Bildnis, Fürst und Territorium, ed. Beyer, 189–218, at 190–2. 14 Prag um 1600, no. 614. 15 See esp. Philip II, by Anthonis Mor (1566, Vienna), or Archduke Albert by Pourbus (1599, Madrid): Alonso Sánchez Coello y el Retrato en la Corte de Felipe II., exh. cat. (Madrid, 1990), nos. 1, 2, 59. 16 Felipe II. Un monarca y su época. Las tierras y los hombres del rey, exh. cat. (Valladolid, 1988), 203, no. 10. 17 Joachim Jacoby, Hans von Aachen, 1552–1615 (Munich/Berlin, 2000), 250–3, ill. 31; Prag um 1600, i.216, no. 98. A portrait of Philip III around 1610 (Alonso Sánchez Coello, 84, ill. 36) seems to have been influenced already by the Aachen-portrait. 18 Indeed after 1601 van Aachen’s style took on ‛a striking plasticity, combined with increasingly simplified ordering of the figures—probably under the influence of Adriaen de Vries—with hints of the early baroque’: Rudolf an der Heiden, ‛Aachen, Hans’, Allge- meines Künstlerlexikon, 1 (Leipzig, 1983), 2–5, at 3. 352 friedrich polleross posed in iconographic contrast to the baton and the helmet on the floor. Thus both elements together symbolize the imperial magnificence and military power of Rudolf 19—ex utroque Cesar.20 But the most important innovation involves perspective: we are no longer looking at the Emperor face to face, but instead from a worm’s-eye view in the position of a lowly subject. Around 1610 the composition was repeated by Hans von Aachen for the state portrait of Rudolf ’s successor Matthias as king of Hungary and Bohemia.21 Again there is an important variation: the right hand of the king is now posed self-confidently on the hip. Probably invented by Tit- ian in his first portrait of Charles V,22 this gesture reached its high-point in the painting of Louis XIV by Rigaud. But in the early 17th century the arm akimbo was condemned in treatises on comportment as a macho gesture of soldiers.23 Whether or not this was a deliberate expression of the character portrayed, it seems that this type of state portrait was—in the version by Daniel Mytens24—also the basis for the famous portrait of Charles I by van Dyck of 1636.25 But it was surely neither ‘habitual for Charles’ to pose with his right hand on his hip; nor did van Dyck invent that gesture and vantage point just for this picture, as suggested in the Washington catalogue.26 The worm’s-eye view is even more obvious in equestrian portraits of baroque princes, and this type also seems to have one of its foundations

19 We can already find such a symbolic meaning of the attribute in a manuscript drawing of Philip II in 1579. Here the helmet symbolizes FAVOR and the heart in the king’s hand AMOR: Felipe II. Un príncipe del Renacimiento, exh. cat. (Madrid, 1998), 566, no. 200. 20 This ‘ex utroque Cesar’ is also to be find in the reliefs by de Vries: Adriaen de Vries 1556–1626. Augsburgs Glanz—Europas Ruhm, exh. cat. (Augsburg, 2000), 252–4. 21 Jacoby, Hans von Aachen, 241–2, colourplate 11; Prag um 1600, i, no. 106. 22 Titian’s portrait is only known through a copy by Rubens of 1603 and a print by Vorsterman: John Rupert Martin, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard XVI: The Decora- tions for the Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi (Brussels, 1972), ill. 27. See also the portrait of the young Rudolf in 1567: Alonso Sánchez Coello, no. 31. 23 Joaneath Spicer, ‘The Renaissance Elbow’, in A Cultural History of Gesture, ed. Jan Bremmer and Herman Roodenburg (Ithaca, NY, 1991), 84–128, at 90–7. 24 Ellis Waterhouse, Painting in Britain, 1530 to 1790 (4th edn, Harmondsworth, 1978), 60, ill. 41–2. 25 The close parallel between the body-language of von Aachen’s portraits and of those by van Dyck has also been newly underlined in the field of artists’ portraiture: Lubomír Konečný, ‘Rudolfinische Künstler über sich in ihrem Werk’, Rudolf II. und Prag, ed. Fučíková, 107–21, at 116–17. Maybe it is not accidental in van Dyck’s portrait of Charles in Armour either: Anthonis van Dyck, exh. cat. (Washington, 1990), 294–5, no. 77, where the crown and the helmet are placed together on the table with allegorical meaning. 26 Anthonis van Dyck, 304, no. 90. portraiture at the imperial court 353 in Prague.27 Well known is the engraving of Rudolf II by the court printmaker Egidius Sadeler, created around 1603 (see illus. 3). In contrast to the equestrian portraits of Rudolf`s grand-uncle Charles V by Titian and the Tempesta-engraving of Henry IV in 1593, which seem to have been the direct sources,28 there is a new and particularly baroque dynamic and action in the portrait.29 No one less than Peter Paul Rubens was three years later to use such a dynamic pose of a rearing horse in his portrait of Giancarlo Doria.30 Adrian de Vries, who made the drawing for the print of Sadeler, was as a pupil of Giambologna well aware of the European search for a modern form of the equestrian monument,31 and there are also some versions of the type in small bronzes. Around 1605 de Vries created a rearing horse without rider, and in 1609 he used the same pose of the animal in a relief of Rudolf II as Roman Imperator.32 This form of portraiture obviously had an explicit iconographic meaning for the Habsburg princes as Romanorum Imperator Semper Augustus. Under this title a variation of the model was published for the coronation of Matthias at Frankfurt in 1612 by an anonymous artist and repeated seven years later for that of Ferdi- nand II.33 In an engraving of Ferdinand II by Sadeler in 1629, the animal’s pose from the Rudolf print is combined with an architectonic background

27 Indeed the ‘impact of the Prague school spread far beyond Central Europe’, and especially print-making played ‘an immense role in disseminating knowledge of what was done in Prague’: Kaufmann, Court, Cloister and City, 201–2. 28 The Stylish Image. Printmakers to the Court of Rudolf II, exh. cat. (Edinburgh, 1991), 26, no. 4. 29 This form of superatio, though more dynamic than that employed for Charles V by Leoni, can also be seen in the bust of the emperor, which de Vries created precisely in 1603: Larsson, ‘Die Porträts’, 128. 30 Van Dyck a Genova. Grande pittura e collezionismo, exh. cat., ed. Susan J. Barnes et al. (Genoa, 1997), no. 150. 31 Giambologna, who recommended de Vries to Rudolf, made already around 1600 a small equestrian sculpture of the emperor in the Marcus Aurelius fashion: 1648. Krieg und Frieden in Europa, ed. Klaus Bußmann and Heinz Schilling, exh. cat. (3 vols., Münster/ Osnabrück, 1998), no. 1163. Rudolf ordered no less than three bronze sculptures of horses by de Vries, one of them with the extraordinary height of 94 cm: Adriaen de Vries, 249–51, no. 18. 32 Adriaen de Vries, 169–71, no. 21; 176–8, no. 23. For the ideology of Rudolf as alter Augustus, propagated in just these years, see Günter Irmscher, Amor und Aeternitas. Das Trionfi-Lavabo Christoph Jamnitzers für Kaiser Rudolf II. (Vienna, 1999), 199–212. 33 Bernd Herbert Wanger, Kaiserwahl und Krönung im Frankfurt des 17. Jahrhunderts. Darstellung anhand der zeitgenössischen Bild- und Schriftquellen und unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Erhebung des Jahres 1612 (Frankfurt a.M., 1994), 202. 354 friedrich polleross and an allegorical frame, which make the antique Roman iconography clear34 in the same way as it had been in the relief by de Vries. In contrast to this multitude of small-size equestrian portraits in Aus- tria, only one lifesize sculpture was realized in the 17th century, the public equestrian monument of Archduke Leopold V, the Emperor’s brother, on a fountain in Innsbruck by Caspar Gras.35 The realization started in 1622, several years before the sculpture of Philip IV by Pietro Tacca for the Buen Retiro palace in Madrid.36 But there are close connections between these two Habsburg monuments in the fields of genealogy and functionality. Florence was the home town not only of the artist in Madrid, but also of Claudia de‘ Medici, who married her brother-in-law, Archduke Leopold V of Tyrol, in 1626.37 Furthermore, both monuments were not placed in public squares, but in the gardens of summer palaces.38 Considering the ‘Spanish Riding School’39 in this context, we have to remember that Rudolf II was a passionate collector of Spanish horses, and that he built stables for several hundred of these animals just under his big gallery rooms.40 Whether Velázquez saw the imperial prints or not,41 the equestrian portrait became the iconographic leitmotiv of both branches

34 Friedrich Polleross, ‘Zur Repräsentation der Habsburger in der bildenden Kunst’, in Welt des Barock, exh. cat., ed. Rupert Feuchtmüller and Elisabeth Kovács (Vienna, 1986), 87–104, at 96, no. 3.01; Walter Liedtke, Royal Horse and Rider. Painting, Sculpture, and Horsemanship, 1500–1800 (New York, 1989), 227, no. 93. 35 Liedtke, Royal Horse and Rider, 212–13, no. 76. 36 Liedtke, Royal Horse and Rider, 210–13; José Manuel Matilla Rodríguez, ‘El caballo de bronce. Problemas técnicos y artísticos de la estatua ecuestre de Felipe IV’, Reales Sitios, 39 (1999), nos. 3, 50–9. 37 On the familial connections between Habsburgs and Medici, see Karl Schütz, ‘Medici und Habsburg’, in Die Pracht der Medici. Florenz und Europa, exh. cat., ed. Wilfried Seipel (2 vols., Vienna, 1999), ii.9–16. 38 The Innsbruck monument is combined with allegories of fishing and hunting: Liedtke, Royal Horse and Rider, 212 f., no. 76; Ruhm und Sinnlichkeit. Innsbrucker Bronze- guß, 1500–1650. Von Kaiser Maximilian I. bis Erzherzog Ferdinand Karl, exh. cat., ed. Gert Amann (Innsbruck, 1997), 220–97, no. 88. 39 See the chapter ‘Rubens, Velázquez, and the Spanish Riding School’, in Liedtke, Royal Horse and Rider, 18–35. 40 Rudolf II. und Prag, ed. Fučíková, 32–3, 53. 41 Thus the equestrian portrait of the Infant Philip Prosper could have been inspired by the print of Sadeler. In 1635 the composition or even the original copperplate was remade by Sadeler’s son Johannes for the portrait of Johann von Werth: F.W.H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts ca. 1450–1700, vol. xxi, ed. Dieuwke de Hoop Scheffer (Amsterdam, 1980), 194, no. 12. Moreover, the image of Charles I by van Dyck as ‘both hero and emperor’ was not only influenced by Titian‘s Charles V, but also ‘following no doubt continental models’, known via prints: Strong, Tudor and Stuart Mon- archy, iii.176 f. portraiture at the imperial court 355 of the Casa de Austria in the second quarter of the century.42 Despite the different media, the series of bronze sculptures by Caspar Gras43 played the same role in the treasure hall of the Viennese Hofburg44 as Velázquez‘s paintings did in the Buen Retiro.45

Matthias and Ferdinand II: Back to the Roots

After the innovative tendencies in Rudolfine portraiture in the first years of the century, most of the paintings from the next decades show less baroque dynamic and brushwork. This can be said not only about the works of the official court portraitists, but also about those of the well- known artists who only worked at the Austrian courts for a shorter time.46 It seems that portraiture in the first half of the 17th century was characterised by permanent struggle between artistic innovation and Habsburg tra- ditionalism. Indeed around 1604 Hans von Aachen and the second court painter in Prague, Joseph Heintz,47 painted their portraits in Innsbruck and Graz in direct rivalry with Frans Pourbus the Younger, who laid the foundations of baroque portrait painting before Rubens and continued to innovate later. If we compare the portrait of Archduchess Mary Magdalene by Heintz with that of the same subject by Pourbus,48 we find some differences, and not only due to the three-quarter length. In the latter one, the later grandduchess of Tuscany is presented with more flesh and blood. In contrast, the princess by Heintz seems to be at a greater distance to the viewer because of the vantage point, the glance directed away from the spectator, and her

42 On the artistic connections between Vienna, Madrid, and Florence in these years, see also Andrea Sommer-Mathis, ‘Una fiesta teatral en la corte de Viena (1633): “El Vel- locvino de Oro” de Lope de Vega. El contexto histórico-cultural’, in ‘Otro Lope no ha de haber’. Atti del Convegno Internazionale su Lope de Vega, ed. M.G. Profeti (Florence, 2000), 201–16, at 214–16. 43 Ruhm und Sinnlichkeit, ed. Amann, nos. 92–5. 44 The series presented around 1640 in the Hofburg started with Giambologna’s Rudolph II, and was continued around 1700 with the ivory sculptures of Leopold I, Joseph I and Charles VI by Matthias Steinl. 45 Jonathan Brown and J.H. Elliott, A Palace for a King. The Buen Retiro and the Court of Philip IV (2nd edn, New Haven/London, 1986), ill. 93. 46 Heinz, ‘Studien zur Porträtmalerei’, offers the best information about the artists working in or for Vienna. 47 For Heintz, see Jürgen Zimmer, ‘Joseph Heintz’, in The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner (34 vols., London, 1996), xiv.319–21, and id., Joseph Heintz der Ältere als Maler (Wei- ßenhorn, 1971). 48 Heinz and Schütz, Porträtgalerie, 110–11, no. 100. 356 friedrich polleross stiffer clothing which underlines the tendency toward two-dimensional- ity. It may well be no accident that in all portraits by Heintz the women are wearing gloves, and that in the ones by Pourbus they are not. Only one year after Pourbus had worked in Austria, Hans von Aachen met Peter Paul Rubens in 1605 in Mantua and was so impressed by the new Flemish style that he persuaded Rudolf II to order two Correggio copies by Rubens for Prague.49 Thus the changes in the later work of the court painter are even more astonishing. Although Aachen used free brushwork and vivid compositions in his portraits of friends and bourgeois men, in his court portraits he depicted more and more ‘ideal princes’ instead of real men.50 Particularly when the artist and his workshop painted a second portrait of Matthias as king of Bohemia around 1612, all the dynamic and mood of the earlier Rudolfine portraits had vanished.51 The hieratic posture of this icon corresponds to the kingly robe instead of the earlier armour, which had presented the male body better. A later variant of this portrait,52 and especially the pendants of Matthias53 and his consort Anna with the imperial coronation robes by Aachen and Jeremias Günther in 1612, are even more stiffened and icon-like. Thanks in part to heavy make-up, Her Majesty’s features seem mannequin-like,54 while her

49 Jürgen Zimmer, ‘Die Gonzaga und der Prager Hof Kaiser Rudolf II. Kunsthistorische Fragmente’, Umění, 46 (1998), 207–21, at 212; Rudolf A. Peltzer, ‘Der Hofmaler Hans von Aachen, seine Schule und seine Zeit’, Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des aller- höchsten Kaiserhauses, 30 (1911–12), 59–182, at 111–12. 50 Heinz, ‛Studien zur Porträtmalerei’, 126. 51 Jacoby, Hans von Aachen, 242–4, ill. 97; Rotraud Bauer et al., Weltliche und Geistliche Schatzkammer. Bildführer (Salzburg/Vienna, 1987), 118–19, no. 141. This style was characteristic of Aachen’s later portraits; see Rüdiger an der Heiden, ‘Die Porträtmalerei des Hans von Aachen’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, 66 (1970), 135–226, at 176: ‛In contrast, however, to the large-scale, plastically modelled, corporeal portraits of 1599 and also somewhat later, now the plastic figurative grasp is again less in evidence.’ But the difference can also be seen as caused by the direct source for the composition, a 1580–5 engraving of Rudolf II as emperor: Prag um 1600, i., no. 325. 52 Krieg und Frieden, ed. Bußmann and Schilling, no. 946. 53 Um Glauben und Reich. Kurfürst Maximilian I., exh. cat., ed. Hubert Glaser (2 vols., Munich, 1980), no. 480. Another version of this portrait was once in Nuremberg: An der Heiden, Porträtmalerei, 217, ill. 188. 54 This correponds to the portraits of Spanish princesses, who wore heavy make-up: David Davies, ‘Anatomie der spanischen Habsburgerportraits’, Krieg und Frieden, ed. Buß- mann and Schilling, ii.69–79, at 71. Indeed there is no big difference in the face of the empress and the Archduchess Maria on her deathbed painted at the same time by the Styrian court painter Giovanni Pietro de Pomis: Kurt Woisetschläger, ‘Die österreichischen Werke’, in Der innerösterreichische Hofkünstler Giovanni Pietro de Pomis, 1569 bis 1633, ed. Woisetschläger (Graz etc., 1974), 144–74, at 153–4, ill. 60. portraiture at the imperial court 357 figure is armoured by the richness and stiffness of her robe.55 This type of state portrait was also used for the official prints after coronations, for instance in the etchings by Marcus Sadeler from 1612 or the engravings of Emperor Ferdinand II and his wife Eleonora Gonzaga by Wolfgang Kilian from 162256 (see illus. 2). Indeed it was also Matthias who used the media of printing more consistently for his ’propaganda’.57 In this context we should remember that it was at just the same time that the state portrait took on the form of a Byzantine icon and that the Habsburgs were painted as saints.58 In 1613 the court painter Matthias Gundelach represented Matthias and his wife in the roles of Saints Mat- thew and Helen.59 After this we should not be surprised that the formal archaism of the state portraits corresponds not only with the sacral ideology of the Emperors Matthias and Ferdinand II,60 but also with the dis- ciplining of the body and the anti-mannerist art theory in the age of the Counter-Reformation.61 Thus Bishop Gianmatteo Giberti’s Constitutiones or the instructions of Saint Charles Borromeo wanted gravitas and mis- ura for the habitus corporis of the clergy.62 Parallel to that, in Francesco Bocchi’s Eccellenza della statua del San Giorgo . . . of 1584, the Italian word „costùme“ is used like both the English words ‘costume’ and ‘custom’, to mean at the same time clothing and manners, habit and character.63 Indeed

55 Heinz, ‛Studien zur Porträtmalerei’, 130, ill. 135. 56 Heinz, ‛Studien zur Porträtmalerei’, 131. 57 Vocelka, Die politische Propaganda, 318–19. 58 In Spain too we find at that time the same censorship of royal portraits and religious paintings: Davies, ‘Anatomie’, 77. 59 Prag um 1600, i, no. 124; Elisabeth Bender, Matthäus Gundelach. Leben und Werk (Diss., Frankfurt a.M., 1981), 31, 163–6. 60 On the process of Catholicization at the court in Vienna, see Robert Bireley, Religion and Politics in the Age of Counterreformation. Emperor Ferdinand II. William Lamormaini SJ., and the Formation of Imperial Policy (Chapel Hill, NC, 1981); id., The Counter-Reforma- tion Prince. Anti-Machiavelianism or Catholic Statecraft in Early Modern Europe (Chapel Hill, NC, 1990); id. and Andreas Kraus, ‘Das katholische Herrscherbild im Reich, darge- stellt am Beispiel Kaiser Ferdinands II. und Kurfürst Maximilians I. von Bayern’, in Das Herrscherbild im 17. Jahrhundert, ed. Konrad Repgen (Münster, 1991), 1–24, at 11–12 (on the Gottesgnadentum); Stefan Krenn, ‘Der kaiserliche Schatz bei der Kapuzinergruft und seine Inventare. Die Stiftung der Kaiserin Anna’, Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, 84 (1988), pp. I–CXXVII. 61 On the ‘pictorial conservatism’ and ‘severe style’ of Spanish court portraiture, see John F. Moffitt, ‘The Theoretical Basis of Velázquez’s Court Portraiture’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 54 (1990), 216–25, at 218. 62 Peter Burke, Varieties of Cultural History (Cambridge, 1997), 94. 63 Axel Christoph Gampp, ‛ “Diletto e maraviglia, piacere e stupore”. Donatellos hl. Georg aus der Sicht des Francesco Bocchi oder: Die Wiedergeburt der Ethos-Figur aus dem Geiste der Gegenreformation’, in Diletto e Maraviglia. Ausdruck und Wirkung in der 358 friedrich polleross in the portrait ‘in full state’, the coronation robe and regalia demonstrate the Emperors’ political body in the same convincing way as the roles of the saints in the identification portraits do.64 Thus this stylistic setback, in parallel with the sacralization of the 1610s, was no coincidence, but rather was intended to demonstrate the tradition of the office and family65—just at a time when the government passed from one Habsburg to another, not by succession from father to son, but through brotherly feud, the dying out of the senior branch of the house, and the restoration of power after the Bohemian Revolution in 1618. Not by accident at the same time Ferdinand wanted in his testament to establish primogeniture for the Habsburg family.66 In this context we should remember the bon-mot of Günther Heinz, who said that in these portraits even the ugly lip of the Habsburgs ‘became a monument’,67 because this sign of genealogical decadence was nonetheless a symbol of Habsburg descent. That our interpretation is correct can be proved by the fact that even Giusto Sustermans, who was then as famous a portraitist as van Dyck, was not able to realize the new baroque style with all its pathos and lively brushwork in Vienna. In 1621 the court painter of the Emperor’s sister Mary Magdalene, Grandduchess of Tuscany, had produced the official portrait of Eleonora Gonzaga as bride of Emperor Ferdinand II.68 In 1623 Sustermans and his brother Jan were called to Vienna and stayed there for two years making portraits of the imperial family.69 When he arrived in Austria the Flemish artist had to combine his modern style inspired by Pourbus with the local tradition.70 This is obvious not only through the contrast between the earlier and the later portrait of the Empress, but also through the differences between Sustermans’s painting of the Emperor

Kunst von der Renaissance bis zum Barock, ed. Christine Göttler et al. (Emsdetten, 1998), 252–71, at 255–8. 64 Friedrich Polleross, Das sakrale Identifikationsporträt. Ein höfischer Bildtypus vom 13. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (Worms, 1988), 29–41. 65 Indeed especially the funeral of Rudolf II was used by Matthias in such a way, and also the engraving of the apotheosis of the late emperor presents him consequently ‘in full state’: Prag um 1600, no. 40; Vocelka, Die politische Propaganda, 329. 66 Thomas Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht. Länder und Untertanen des Hauses Habsburg im konfessionellen Zeitalter (2 vols., Vienna, 2003), i.175–8. 67 Heinz, ‛Studien zur Porträtmalerei’, 127. 68 Heinz and Schütz, Porträtgalerie, no. 241. 69 Lisa Goldenberg Stoppato, ‘Suttermans, Giusto’, The Dictionary of Art, ed. Turner, xxx.39–42, at 40; Sustermans. Sessant’anni alla corte dei Medici, exh. cat. (Florence, 1983), 108, no. L, 114, no. LXX; Heinz and Schütz, Porträtgalerie, nos. 96, 242. 70 Heinz, ‘Studien zur Porträtmalerei’, 149. portraiture at the imperial court 359 of 1624 and that of Cosimo II de’ Medici from 1620.71 Indeed it is not in the canvases of the mid-twenties, but in the older ones that we find the modern interest in depicting space through the tectonics of architecture and furniture, the enthusiasm for action expressed through spontaneous gestures and the motion of dogs. The more recent paintings went back to planarity and linearity and to decent gestures and sitting dogs. However, even in Vienna artistic innovation was not to be stopped. The portrait of Emperor Ferdinand II by Georg Bachmann around 1635 seems to have been inspired by paintings like Sustermans’s portrait of Ambrogio Spinola (1627) in its interest in the sensualism of metal and textiles.72 Nev- ertheless the dynamic of the pose and the luxury of the composition did not yet exceed the level of Aachen’s Rudolf II thirty years before, and the general’s portraitist was much better than that of his boss.

Ferdinand III and Leopold Wilhelm: Modernity versus Severity

After Rubens’ stay in Madrid in 1628–9,73 and finally in 1634–5, when Rubens and his workshop and van Dyck made portraits of the victors of Nördlingen74 and the ‘Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi’, also in honour of Ferdinand III, the court in Vienna was confronted with the current state of portraiture. Some of the paintings for the ephemeral decorations, for example the full-figure portraits of the two protagonists, are in Vienna to this very day.75 Indeed, soon after his coronation, in 1638, the new Emperor employed a pupil of Rubens, Frans Luycx, as court portraitist.76 One of his first works—maybe even made during the artist’s trip to Rome

71 Heinz and Schütz, Porträtgalerie, nos. 94, 96, 241, 242, 248; Prag um 1600, ii, no. 561. 72 Krieg und Frieden, ed. Bußmann and Schilling, nos. 150, 995. 73 Velázquez—Rubens—Lorrain; Velázquez, Rubens y Van Dyck, ed. Brown. Indeed already in September 1628 the imperial ambassador in Madrid, Franz Christoph von Khevenhüller, informed the court in Vienna that the ‘famous painter’ Rubens had arrived at the court of Philip IV. Rubens made then a portrait of the Infanta Maria, just married to the later Emperor Ferdinand III in 1629: Frances Huemer, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, XIX: Portraits (Brussels, 1977), 144–6, ill. 79. One portrait of the Rubens series, the sketch for Isabella of Bourbon, has been in Vienna at least since the eighteenth century: ibid. 160–1. 74 Martin, Corpus Rubenianum XVI; Krieg und Frieden, ed. Bußmann and Schilling, no. 1110. 75 Peter Paul Rubens, 1577–1640, exh. cat. (Vienna, 1977), nos. 52–3. 76 Ernst Ebenstein, ‘Der Hofmaler Franz Luycx. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Malerei am österreichischen Hof’, Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, 26 (1906–7), 183–254, at 187–8. 360 friedrich polleross in 1635—shows Ferdinand after his victory at Nördlingen in 1634.77 The Prince’s pose is close to that of the Cardinal-Infante of Rubens’s ‘Pompa Introitus’ or a portrait of Philip IV by Caspar de Crayer,78 and the proud representation of the gilded armour and the feathers of the helmet by Luycx seems to reflect the coloristic sensualism of paintings like Rubens‘s Earl of Arundel (1629–30).79 Flemish sources are to be found also in the court painter’s portrait of Archduchess Cecilia Renata, Queen of Poland (around 1637),80 where not only the French taste of clothing and hair-style, but also the depiction of silk and the view to the garden follow paintings like Rubens’s Helene Fourment or van Dyck’s Henrietta of Lorraine (1635).81 Indeed, some of the portraits by Luycx are so near to van Dyck, that the former must also have had some knowledge of recent Flemish portraiture (see illus. 7). Especially the paintings of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm around 163882 are close to the glamour, leggiadria, sprezzatura and free brushwork of van Dyck’s portraits.83 And the Viennese court painter’s portrait of Archduke Ferdinand IV and his sister Mary Anne from circa 1638–4084 even incorporates the oriental carpet from van Dyck’s Children of Charles I. Thus around 1640 the court in Vienna had a clear idea of modern portraiture and even followed the van-Dyckian model in some ways. Nevertheless Luycx also used a more and more retrospective style the longer he remained in Vienna,85 or the higher the rank of the person portrayed. At least the portrait of Dona Maria Anna, the first consort of Ferdinand III, from 1640–5,86 is clearly a more archaic presentation than that of her children. We find a similar severity in the work of the Florentine court painter in Innsbruck, Lorenzo Lippi. A generation younger than Sustermans, he was called by Archduchess Claudia de’ Medici to Tyrol, where he stayed

77 Krieg und Frieden, ed. Bußmann and Schilling, no. 151. 78 Hans Vlieghe, ‘Caspar de Crayer als Bildnismaler. Seine Entwicklung bis etwa 1630’, Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, 63 (1967), 81–108, at 98–9, ills 91–2. 79 Huemer, Corpus Rubenianum XIX, 107–9, ill. 52. 80 Heinz and Schütz, Porträtgalerie, no. 113, ill. 169. 81 Van Dyck 1599–1641, exh. cat., ed. Christopher Brown and Hans Vlieghe (Antwerp/ London, 1999), no. 74. 82 Heinz and Schütz, Porträtgalerie, no. 115, ill. 175. 83 See especially the Abbé Scaglia: Anthonis van Dyck, 272–4, no. 70. 84 Heinz and Schütz, Porträtgalerie, no. 125, ill. 167. 85 Heinz, ‛Studien zur Porträtmalerei’, 164 f. 86 Museo del Prado. Inventario General de Pinturas (3 vols., Madrid, 1990–6), i.640, no. 2439. portraiture at the imperial court 361 from 1643 to 1644 and from 1646 to 1648. He may even have come to Linz or Vienna with Claudia‘s daughter Maria Leopoldine in 1648.87 Lippi’s portrait of this second consort of Ferdinand III used not only a composition reminiscent of the time before Sustermans arrived in Florence,88 but also contrasted with the brushwork of the Flemish court painter in Florence.89 Instead of opulent draperies and atmospheric space, we have an organization of the plane achieved through contrasting colours and ornamental disegno.90 We could once more interpret this development as a problem of poor copies or the inferior artistic skill of the portraitists, but Lippi also used the same simplified style with clearly defined shapes and unambiguous expression for his religious works like Christ and the Woman of Sama- ria, also painted in Austria for the Archduchess. Indeed the ‘strictly purist figurative language’ of the artist ‘was intended to revive the style of such great 16th-century masters as Andrea del Sarto and Fra Bartolommeo’.91 It is not surprising that Lippi combined the static quality of his portraits and the classicism of his religious paintings, particularly in the identification portrait of Leopoldina’s mother Claudia de’ Medici as Saint Christine of Bolsena.92 The same tendency toward classicism is also characteristic of the paintings for Archduke Leopold Wilhelm by his court painter Jan van den Hoe- cke, who was without doubt a better pupil of Rubens and van Dyck than Luycx and in some way the antipode of van Dyck.93 Van den Hoecke had already worked from 1637 to 1642 for the court, and was in Vienna from 1644 to 1647.94 He left Austria for Brussels with the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in 1647. Coming from Rome, he was a friend of Poussin and perhaps the strictest classicist among the painters of Antwerp, and thus corresponded to the taste of Leopold Wilhelm, who preferred the style of

87 Heinz, ‘Studien zur Porträtmalerei’, 153–4, ill. 167; Heinz and Schütz, Porträtgalerie, no. 124. 88 Catharina de‘ Medici by Valore Casini around 1617–18: Die Pracht der Medici,ed. Sei- pel, 34, no. B 15. 89 See, e.g., the portrait of Leopoldine’s sister-in-law Anna de’ Medici by Sustermans, sent probably around 1630 to Austria: Die Pracht der Medici, ed. Seipel, 44, no. B 25. 90 Heinz and Schütz, Porträtgalerie, no. 124, ill. 164. 91 Chiara d‘Afflitto, ‘Lippi, Lorenzo’, The Dictionary of Art, ed. Turner, xix.452–3. 92 Die Pracht der Medici,ed. Seipel, 34, no. B 18. 93 Günther Heinz, ‘Hoecke, Jan van den’, The Dictionary of Art, ed. Turner, xiv.616–18. 94 Günther Heinz, ‘Studien über Jan van den Hoecke und die Malerei der Niederländer in Wien’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, 63 (1967), 108–64, at 115. 362 friedrich polleross the Renaissance and the strict Baroque.95 Van den Hoecke’s half-figure portraits of the Emperor (see illus. 5) and his brother as general differ through their classical monumentality from the earlier portrait of the Car- dinal-Infante for the ‘Pompa Introitus’,96 but also from the ‘private’ portraits with their open painterly structure.97 This was no coincidence, as is clearly demonstrated by comparable developments which are even to be found in the field of equestrian portraiture. Whereas van den Hoecke painted the two Ferdinands in a depiction for the same Arcus Ferdinandi on rearing horses,98 he used the Marcus Aurelius model with trotting animal for the equestrian portrait of Leopold Wilhelm (see illus. 4). Parallel to that, the ‘static composition differs markedly from comparable subjects by Rubens and Anthony van Dyck’.99 This transformation of high baroque figures into more classical ones also had its rhetorical meaning: emotion or indolence were reduced in favour of more ratio and gravitas. Such a presentation of the Austrian princes in the last years of the Thirty Years War was an understandable message if we look at contemporay prints. Thus on an engraving by Michel Lasne of 1629 Louis XIII on a rearing horse was set in contrast to Cardinal de Richelieu standing beside a table. The inscription makes it quite clear that the king symbolizes war and furor, his minister peace and rational government.100 Parallel to political iconography, many artists in the mid- 17th century thought about the depiction of human expression, especially Poussin and Le Brun. Because both were working in Rome, from where Luycx and van den Hoecke came to Vienna, the Habsburg court artists should have been aware of this. So we can draw the conclusion that the conservatism and classicism of court portraiture in 17th-century Austria was not so much caused by

95 Heinz, ‛Studien zur Porträtmalerei’, 165–6; Krieg und Frieden, ed. Bußmann and Schilling, no. 1216. 96 Arnout Balis et al., Flämische Malerei im Kunsthistorischen Museum Wien (Zurich, 1989), 244–6; Martin, Corpus Rubenianum XVI, nos. 38–9. 97 See especially van den Hoecke’s self-portrait and the portrait of Cassiano dal Pozzo: I segreti di un Collezionista. Le straordinarie raccolte di Cassiano dal Pozzo, 1588–1657, exh. cat., ed. Francesco Solinas (Rome, 2000), 34–6. 98 Caspar Gevaarts, Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi . . . (Antwerp, 1641, repr. Untersch- neidheim, 1971), 98. The painting is today in the Queen’s collection: Martin, Corpus Rube- nianum XVI, no. 37. 99 Heinz, ‘Hoecke’, 616; id., ‘Studien über Jan van den Hoecke’, 116; id., ‛Studien zur Porträtmalerei’, 166, ill. 186. 100 Francoise Bardon, Le portrait mythologique à la cour de France sous Henri IV et Louis XIII. Mythologie et politique (Paris, 1974), pl. XLVII. portraiture at the imperial court 363 inferior artistic qualitiy, but was firstly a consequence of ideology.101 Prob- ably the Emperors wanted to demonstrate tradition and inherited power instead of modernistic and indecent innovations. Furthermore there can be no doubt that the Habsburgs would and could not be represented in their portraits with more affects and emotions than in reality.102 Although the notorious Spanish court ceremonial was used in a less severe form in Vienna, the Holy Roman Emperor should still not demonstrate less gravi- dad than his cousin and double brother-in-law on the throne of the Span- ish kingdom.103 Therefore we see in the portrait of Ferdinand III by Luycx104 and van den Hoecke (see illus. 5) in the middle of the 17th century the same severitas as in the painting of Philip IV by Velázquez. Indeed, already in 1584–90 Lomazzo named gravità and maiestà as the essential qualities or ideas to be depicted in the portraiture of emperors.105 In the mirror of princes Princeps in Compendio written in 1632 at the court of Ferdinand II (and probably for his future grandson), moderatio was named as the main virtue of a good prince,106 and in the same work we find a chapter especially dedicated to the gravitas of the ruler. In its final sentence, taken from the book Virtutes et Vitia by Carlo Pasquali of 1615, we read that such manners are necessary for monarchs to present dignity and majesty: ‘illa reverenda et amabilis gravitas, sine qua nulla dig- nitas intelligitur, nulla maiestas suscipitur.’107 But the visual experience may have had more importance than such a text. Indeed in 1632 and/or 1639 and after 1650 portraits of Philip IV, his consorts Isabella and Maria Anna, and their children were sent to Vienna.108 Today three portraits of the Spanish King by Velázquez and his workshop are conserved which

101 Moffitt, ‘Velázquez’s Court Portraiture’, 217. 102 For the relation between ceremonial and portraiture in Spain, see Davies, ‘Ana tomie’, 69–71. 103 On the spanish ceremonial, see Glyn Redworth and Fernando Checa, ‘The Courts of the Spanish Habsburgs 1500–1700’, in The Princely Courts of Europe. Ritual, Politics and Culture under the Ancien Régime 1500–1750, ed. John Adamson (London, 1999), 42–65, at 56–9. 104 Baroque Art in Central Europe. Crossroads, exh. cat., ed. Géza Galavics (Budapest, 1993), 261–3, no. 88. 105 Moffitt, ‘Velázquez’s Court Portraiture’, 224. 106 Konrad Repgen, ‘Ferdinand III., 1637–57’, in Die Kaiser der Neuzeit, 1519–1918. Hei- liges Römisches Reich, Österreich, Deutschland, ed. Anton Schindling and Walter Ziegler (Munich, 1990), 142–67, at 148. 107 Franz Bosbach (ed.), ‘Princeps in Compendio’, in Das Herrscherbild, ed. Repgen, 79–114, at 96. 108 Miguel Morán and Karl Rudolf, ‘Nuevos documentos en torno a Velázquez y las colecciones reales’, Archivo Espanol de Arte, 259–60 (1992), 289–302, at 289–92. 364 friedrich polleross not only present Philip in black clothing, but—two of them—also at bust- length and against a plain black background, corresponding to the ‘private function’ of these paintings.109 Consequently the eloquent understatement and classicist touch of these portraits seems not only to reflect ceremonial and political gravitas, but also the rhetorical genus of the ethos. Therefore these paintings do not show the affected movere of pathos, but the modest style of conciliare.110 Thus the ‘black paintings’ of the princes of the Casa de Austria demonstrated moderatio and modestia not only as an ideology of the Habsburgs,111 but also as the virtue of an artist like Velázquez.112 In the last years of the Thirty Years War, with military and political defeats for the Habsburgs and during the time of difficult peace negotiations in Münster and Osnabrück, modesty and severity might also have been just the right virtues to be demonstrated in the portraits of the Emperor and his brother-general.113 The dominance of black in these paintings even recalls the portraits of Habsburgs on their deathbed, for exemple Archduchess Mary Anne by the Styrian court painter Giovanni Pietro de Pomis in 1616. By contrast, the dead Lady Digby by van Dyck114 seems to have more life-blood in her than Ferdinand and Philip do in paintings that depict them in the prime of life. Therefore we should not wonder that the glamorous and colourful style of van Dyck was accepted by the Habsburgs only for a short time, in a ‘light version’ or at the provincial court of Innsbruck (see illus. 7). Nevertheless there have been some connections, which leave us with some questions. In van Dyck’s Iconographia we find not only portraits of the Infants Isabella and Ferdinand, but also of Emperor Ferdinand III and his first consort Mary Anne of Spain signed with the words Ant. Van

109 The Velázquez painting dates from 1632 (recte 1639?): José López-Rey, Velázquez. Maler der Maler (2 vols., 2nd edn, Cologne, 1996), 150, no. 61. The later version from the workshop was sent in 1653 to Leopold Wilhelm; a copy of the first one seems to have been originally in Innsbruck: Heinz and Schütz, Porträtgalerie, no. 40, ill. 184. 110 Gampp, ‘ “Diletto e maraviglia” ’, 255. 111 On the black clothing of Philip IV and its representation of ‘inner goodness’, see Jonathan Brown, ‘Enemies of Flattery: Velázquez`s Portraits of Philip IV’, Art and History. Images and their Meanings, ed. R.I. Rotberg and T.K.Rabb (Cambridge, 1988), 137–54, at 151–3; Moffitt, ‘Velázquez’s Court Portraiture’, 220; Georg J. Kugler, ‘Die Farben Schwarz in Zeremoniell und Etikette’, in Die Farben Schwarz, exh. cat., ed. Thomas Zaunschirm (Graz etc., 1999), 53–9. 112 Davies, ‘Anatomie’, 70. 113 For the political background, see Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht, i.376–94. 114 Van Dyck 1599–1641, ed. Brown and Vlieghe, no. 69. portraiture at the imperial court 365

Dyck pinxit115 (see illus. 6 and 8). The prints were sculpsit by Cornelius Galle the Second,116 and executed by Joannes Meyssens in Antwerp in 1649.117 So they were published eight years after the death of van Dyck and three years after the death of the Empress. As far as we know, neither did van Dyck travel through Vienna,118 nor did the Emperor and his consort visit Antwerp. The only direct connections that I see between Vienna and Antwerp or van Dyck can be made through Justus Sustermans,119 and especially through Jan van den Hoecke and Wenzel Hollar. The last of these visited Vienna and the court in 1636 in the company of Lord Arundel on a mission from Charles I to Ferdinand II,120 and he made a drawing of St. Stephen’s Cathedral.121 Indeed Hollar worked for Meyssens and van Dyck’s Iconographia too.122 But the word ‘pinxit’ on the portraits means ‘painted’, and therefore not delineavit after a given canvas by someone else, who also should be noted. Maybe this term would be more correct for van den Hoecke, who was recommended in 1639 by Abbé Scaglia to Cassiano dal Pozzo as a pupil of van Dyck (allievo di Vandyck).123 Nevertheless, even if we accept a ‘post-mortem painting’ of van Dyck made by an enterprising publisher,124 there can be no doubt that the

115 Marie Mauquoy-Hendrickx, L’Iconographie d’Antoine van Dyck (Brussels, 1991), nos. 123, 125; Simon Turner (comp.), The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engrav- ings and Woodcuts, 1450–1700. Anthony van Dyck (8 vols., Rotterdam, 2002), iii.78–82. 116 Galle (1615–78) also made another portrait of Ferdinand III for Meyssens: F.W.H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts, ca. 1450–1700, vol. vii (Amsterdam, 1951), 67, no. 166. 117 Joannes Meyssens (1613–70) had the largest publishing shop in Antwerp. His son Cornelis, who published a series of Effigies Imperatorum Domus Austriacae, settled in Vienna in 1673: Baroque Art, ed. Galavics, 279. 118 Nevertheless it should be noticed in this context that there was at least one contemporary work by van Dyck in Vienna: an altar painting in the Waldstein-Harrach family chapel of the court church of the Augustinians. 119 Sustermans was in Vienna in 1623–4, and in the years after he was portrayed by van Dyck himself: Anthony van Dyck as a Printmaker, exh. cat., ed. Carl Depauw and Ger Luijteb (Antwerp/Amsterdam, 1999), 144–6, no. 16. Sustermans’ brother Cornelius was court painter in Vienna around 1653: Heinz, ‘Studien zur Porträtmalerei’, 170. 120 Alena Volrábová (ed.), Wenceslaus Hollar, 1607–77, and Europe between Life and Desolation (Prague, 2007), 186–203. 121 Hans Mielke, Wenzel Hollar. Radierungen und Zeichnungen aus dem Berliner Kupfer- stichkabinett (Berlin, 1984), 282, no. 63. 122 Antoon van Dyck, 1599–1641, en Antwerpen, exh. cat., ed. Alfred Moir et al. (Antwerp, 1991), no. 16 (de Wael), nos. 19 f. (Lord and Lady Arundel). 123 I segreti di un Collezionista, ed. Solinas, 35. 124 On the different editions of the Iconographia, also after 1641, see Antoon van Dyck, ed. Moir, 67–70. 366 friedrich polleross

(original) portraits are correct and must have been made from life. Indeed both engravings have close connections to paintings by Frans Luycx. Thus the face and the collar follow the portrait just named. The composition and the laurel of Ferdinand can also be found in a later engraving of the Emperor by Frans van den Steen after Luycx.125 The pose and clothing of Her Majesty are parallel to that in paintings of her by Luycx in Madrid and Gripsholm.126 So we could suppose that either van den Hoecke or Luycx himself,127 or one of the Flemish court engravers, lent his hand to the spirit of a long-deceased Anthony van Dyck. Franciscus van den Steen (1624–72) worked for Joannes Meysens as an engraver of portraits for the Images printed in 1649, and he also made prints after van Dyck. He probably came to Vienna with Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, where he was appointed court engraver in 1657.128 It could be that he also had connections to Vienna before 1649, but Luycx could have travelled to Antwerp in 1647 or 1649.129 Indeed, if we compare the Van Dyck engraving of the Empress with the painting of Ferdinand Karl by Luycx we find the same interest not only in the decorative clothing, but also in giving details like meshes, curtains and curly hair their own life (see illus. 7 and 8). The modus of the Antwerp graphics is very different from the court paintings by van den Hoecke (see illus. 5 and 6). In contrast to the modest and severe style of the painted portrait of Ferdinand III, with the reduction of movement and colour, the print not only offers glamorous attributes like the imperial insigna or the laurel, but also a greater dynamic in details like textiles, the moustache of the Emperor or the golden vellum, which on the print seems to be alive. In my opinion, this make a very clear and intentional difference between the commercial prints in Flan- ders, whose modern high-baroque style addresses a wider public between London and Paris, and the more private self-stylization of Ferdinand by gravitas and ethos in the court painter’s portrait.

125 Heinz, ‘Studien zur Porträtmalerei’, 204, no. 123; Baroque Art, ed. Galavics, no. 89. 126 Ebenstein, ‘Der Hofmaler Franz Luycx’, ill. 21. 127 There is a documented trip to Antwerp in 1652: Ebenstein, ‘Der Hofmaler Franz Luycx’, 193. 128 Anthony van Dyck, ed. Depauw and Luijteb, 384. 129 In 1649 Luycx made a journey to Germany, on which he could also have been in Brussels: Ebenstein ‘Der Hofmaler Franz Luycx’, 192. Epilogue

International System and Imperial System in the ‘Short’ Eighteenth Century: Two Worlds?

Heinz Duchhardt

In the last two or three decades research dealing with international relations in pre-modern times and historiography focused on the early modern Holy Roman Empire have alike acquired the habit of approaching their respective objects of interest through the concept of ‘system’. By system I mean a set of mutual relations which involve a series of participants, political units in a geographic sphere, acting side by side or against each other, led by different interests, different as far as the ability to pursue a policy is concerned. The one thing these units did not want was to bring the system to collapse. The notion of system is always linked fundamentally with the idea of conservation; the units which formed part of a system brought their system into line with changing circumstances if need be, but never thought of destroying it. At least two milestones of modern research which bear on the eighteenth century should be mentioned here: Volker Press’ structural analysis of the Holy Roman Empire as a system, which was first published, not by chance, in an Austrian journal; and Paul Schroeder’s historical and political analysis and interpretation of international politics in Europe und its transformation around 1815.1 Schroeder, in some respects more a political scientist than a historian, goes far afield, starting his analysis with the peace of Paris of 1763 in order to contrast very sharply the thinking and actions of old European political leaders and elites, governed by the balance of power, limited pacifications and the dominance of a small number of great powers, with the new political thinking which seized the cabinets at the Vienna Congress and after. To reduce Schroeder’s thesis to its core: between the system of mere great power politics, in the last instance a

1 ‘Das Heilige Römische Reich als politisches System: Probleme der Sozial- und Verfas- sungsgeschichte des Heiligen Römischen Reiches im späten Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit (13.–18. Jahrhundert). Zu einem Forschungsschwerpunkt’, and ‘Das römisch-deutsche Reich: ein politisches System in verfassungs- und sozialgeschichtlicher Fragestellung’, both repr. in Volker Press, Das Alte Reich. Ausgewählte Aufsätze, ed. J. Kunisch (Berlin, 1997). Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (Oxford, 1994). 368 heinz duchhardt dishonest policy, just looking for selfish benefit, and the changed attitudes of post-Vienna politics, subsumed under the headline of restoration, there was a tremendous difference. The revolutionary and Napoleonic wars had a so-to-say cathartic effect on the political elites between Moscow and London and brought about the realization that the traditional political- military behaviour, namely to risk a conflict even for very small geographic or economic advantages, should not be allowed to continue. The main reason of that change of political thinking was the insight that wars could no longer be limited merely to military exchanges: the revolutionary wars with their slogans and keywords of freedom or brotherhood had influenced the mentalities of a wide audience and become strong elements of a society which was no longer that of the ancien régime. That was why—a revolutionary process—a kind of consensus developed in Vienna that a very stable post-war order had to be established, resting on the funda- ment of a common political philosophy. The question to be raised here is whether there are interfaces between the two systems and, if so, where they might be found. In some respects it was only at Vienna that, as far as international relations were concerned, the point was reached which for the Reich system had already throughout the eighteenth century had a kind of canonical importance: the preven- tion of conflict, a politics of no change, on the basis of a common political philosophy, that of excluding aggressive conduct or an active role for the Holy Roman Empire in international politics. In the short eighteenth century, i.e. the time between the end of the age of Louis XIV and the outbreak of the French Revolution, in principle two systems which could not have been more different stood side by side: on the one hand the static and conservatory system of the Reich, to which military conflicts were alien in nature and which saw its main goal in keeping tradition and in inertia; on the other hand the dynamic system dominated by a small group of great powers which aimed at change within certain accepted rules of the game. Let me just add that there was never a full and general consensus which states belonged to the circle of the great powers, and after Louis XIV’s death the membership of Sweden, Spain and even the Netherlands was still disputed; nor was there any consensus whether and from what moment Russia belonged to this exclusive circle of states which thought that they alone had the right to change things. Moreover, among the main spheres for these quarrels were the fields of ceremony and, as it is called today, symbolic acting.2

2 On which see now, for the Empire, Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger Des Kaisers alte Kleider: Verfassungsgeschichte und Symbolsprache im Alten Reich (Munich, 2008). international system and imperial system 369

‘International system’ and ‘imperial system’: were they then two different worlds not connected in any respect? Yes and no. There is no question, and research has underlined the point many times, that the Holy Roman Empire as such did not participate in great power politics: this federation of princes and cities had neither the military nor the political power to act on the same level as Great Britain, France or Russia. Nor was its political structure of a kind that favoured claims for emulating the undoubted great powers: the emperor could only act on behalf of the princes and cities assembled at the Regensburg diet, but was not autonomous. So the Holy Roman Empire as a political body in its own right never participated in the great peace congresses of the eighteenth century, whether the congresses aimed at ending a war, like Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 or Hubertus- burg and Paris in 1763, or the congresses aimed at preserving peace, like Cambrai or Soissons in the 1720s. But the intersection was provided, of course, by the two rival German great powers which came into being in the first third of the eighteenth century. On the one hand was Austria which had maintained itself, thanks to Prince Eugene’s genius, against the Turkish threat and expanded considerably due to the Spanish inheritance, even though the most attractive parts of the latter had come into the clutches of a Bourbon prince. Austria had even—but only after the War of the Austrian Succession—started to modernize its inner structures to enhance its power in view of conflicts to come. On the other hand was Prussia, the newcomer from the North, a comparatively small state with a well-organized and well-equipped army, whose princes had been honoured, in 1701, by a royal crown and who, step by step, emancipated themselves from their traditional ally, the Habsburg Hofburg. It was in 1740 that this long-lasting alliance definitively came to an end, to be restored half-heartedly on either side only half a century later under the threat of the French Revolution.3 It soon became obvious that both Austria, although bearer of the imperial crown, and Prussia, although one of the electors of the Empire, tended to disregard their duties vis-à-vis the Reich and staked out their interests anew, to gain undisputed great power status and act on an equal footing with France or Great Britain, and to create the inner prerequisites of an ambitious foreign policy. But in both cases we have to emphasize that

3 Convenient recent introductions in English: Michael Hochedlinger, Austria’s Wars of Emergence: War, State and Society in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1683–1797 (London, 2003); Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom. The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (London, 2006); Reed Browning, The War of the Austrian Succession (Stroud, 1994); M.S. Anderson The War of the Austrian Succession, 1740–8 (London, 1995); Franz A.J. Szabo, The Seven Years War in Europe, 1756–63 (Harlow, 2008). 370 heinz duchhardt they did not attain the full standing of equal participants in international politics. Prussia had to be content with the conquest of Silesia, admittedly a prosperous and geopolitically important province, but a province it had to fight several wars for and not a conquest which brought it, demographi- cally or economically, to the top of the hierarchy of the European powers. Prussia remained a great power on probation during the whole ancien régime: it was no coincidence that many politicians all over Europe were afraid Frederick the Great’s death would cause Prussia’s relapse into the group of secondary states. Austria, on the other side, was unable to reverse the loss of its most important province and could not even secure an equivalent of it, e.g. in Bavaria. In the end, the Hofburg in Vienna had to satisfy itself with the acquisition of parts of the Polish kingdom—but only at the expense of accepting that Prussia, too, participated in this incredible division of a sovereign state to the benefit of its three neighbours. Austria’s coalition of 1756 with France was not really helpful, although it was important for dissolving the embedded structures of alliance policy in Europe: France was, owing to its inner problems, no longer an ally with whose aid things could be changed in Europe. One of the main reasons why neither Prussia nor Austria ever played at the very top of the Champions’ League was that neither of them had any interests in the trans-oceanic world which more and more became the core of international relations. Prussia had given up its commercial rights and colonial possessions decades ago, at the very beginning of the eighteenth century; and Austria, which had never been in possession of overseas colonies, had been forced to renounce its commercial ambitions by abandoning its Ostende Company in the late 1720s. At least from the middle of the century the real great powers were, and had to be, global players. That was not the dimension in which Berlin and Vienna were able to act. But in any case both felt—and were acknowledged as—great powers, and in this regard they tried to loosen their links to the Empire more and more. It was symptomatic that there were nearly constant discussions in the Hofburg on the disadvantages as well as the advantages of having the imperial crown on the head of a member of the Habsburg or Habsburg- Lorraine family. In this context it is significant that Emperor Joseph II did not do much to bring the Wetzlar Reichskammergericht back into action after its visitation in the 1760s and that he had no scruples about changing the ecclesiastical frontiers of south-German territories without consulting the prince-bishops, the Regensburg diet or the Roman curia. The Empire international system and imperial system 371 was not to foil the conversion of the Habsburg territories into a strong and powerful centralized state. The same is true as far as Prussia is concerned. The Prussian kings made use of the institutions of the Empire to stir up public opinion against the Vienna enemy, for example in the Seven Years War, but they were not really interested in helping them to function. Prussian subjects in principle were forbidden to institute proceedings against anybody at the imperial courts at Wetzlar or Vienna, but instead of this had to consult the Prussian Kammergericht in Berlin. Still more symptomatic is the fact that just at the moment, in 1785, when Prussia would have been able to promote modernization in the constitution of the Empire, i.e. when it had been successful in establishing the anti-Habsburg league of princes, the Fürstenbund, it did nothing at all. All the hopes that Prussia would take the lead in reforming Germany’s institutions, hopes articulated among others by Carl August of Sachsen-Weimar or Karl von Dalberg, faded and yielded no result. Prussia was not interested in an Empire that might weaken its own statehood. So the options of the two German great powers—great powers on a reduced level—were more and more reduced vis-à-vis the Empire. In their eyes—and in this respect they formed a real great coalition—the political body of the Empire should not shackle them and their progress to a modern and centralized statehood. It was a kind of irony that the international system a few years after the dissolution of the Empire, which Prussia and Vienna had not hindered, even if they had been able to, took exactly the same shape which had been the hallmark of the old Reich: self-denial, conservation of the peace, preservation of order and justice, whatever that order meant under the auspicies of the Holy Alliance. The international system of the period after Vienna was, of course, not a copy of the Holy Roman Empire; but in its essence, it was not too far away from it.

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Aachen, imperial city 104, 112 armies Aachen, Hans van 327, 329, 351–2, 355, administration 240, 246–7, 264, 284 359 cartography 266–7 Abrahamson, Werner 304–5 command 82, 254–5, 287 absolutism 20, 70–1, 239, 287, 923, 299, German 70, 241, 244–8, 284 305, 310 Hungarian 264–9 Aeneas 63 imperial 28, 31, 79, 82–3, 182, 241, Africa 3, 344 245–8 Afterlehen, see subfeuds interpretations 190, 201 Agincourt, battle (1415) 81 Polish 243–4, 248–57, 287 Aichel, Jan Blasius Santini 318 Prussian 194–5, 198–9, 240–1, 246, 369 Aix la Chapelle, treaty (1748) 369 regulations 269 Alba, bishopric 229, 233 religion in 25 Alba, Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, duke Savoyard 195–9 of 210–11, 351 Spanish 31, 33, 81–2, 84, 210 Albert, archduke and governor of the Swedish 23, 31–3 Netherlands 1598–1621 81–4, 89 see also hussars, taxation, weapons Albert II, king of Hungary and Bohemia, aristocracy see nobility, titles and emperor 1438–9 259–60 Arras 81–2 Albertine Wettins, see Wettin dynasty arsenals 270 Albrecht IV von Brandenburg, archbishop Artois 80, 87, 316 of Magdeburg 1513–45 325 Arundel, Thomas Howard earl of 365 Aleppo 348 Asbach, Olaf 36 Alexander the Great, king of Macedon Aschaffenburg 325 336–323BC 66–7, 189 Asia 336 almanacs 60 Asti 195, 223, 229, 232 Alsace 3, 26, 316 Auersperg family 144–5, 148, 159 Altdorfer, Albrecht 317, 327 Auersperg, Johann Weikhard von 30, 164 Althan family 102 Augsburg, imperial city 265, 270–1, 274, Altona 295 324–7, 338–9, 341 Altranstädt, treaty (1707) 286 Augsburg, treaty (1548) 80, 204, 208–11, Amalia, margravine of Baden 65 214–15 Amsterdam 27, 341 Augsburg, treaty [not peace?] (1555) 6, Angielini, Nicolò 266 21, 209 Anhalt-Zerbst, principality 5 August, elector of Saxony 1553–86 266, Anna of Tyrol, empress of Matthias 356 328 Annaberg 317, 326 Augustus II (‘the Strong’), elector of Anne of Hungary and Bohemia, empress Saxony 1694–1733 and king of Poland of Ferdinand I 334–5, 341 1697–1733 242, 257, 281–9 Ansbach see Brandenburg-Ansbach Augustus III, elector of Saxony and king of Antwerp 342–3, 348, 365–6 Poland 1733–63 281, 288–9 Aosta 191 Augustyniak, Urszula 252 archchancellor 101, 104, 110–11, 156–7 Aulic Chancellery, Hungarian (Cancellaria Arcimboldo, Giuseppe 327 Hungarica Aulica) 275 Arese, Carlo Borromeo 220 Aulic Council, imperial see Reichshofrat Aretin, Karl Otmar Freiherr von 171, 218 Aulic War Council (Hofkriegsrat), see Argenteau family 88 Court War Council 386 index

Austerlitz, battle (1805) 7, 59–60 and Empire 11, 13, 108, 121–41, 145–9, Austria 70 151–65, 172–3, 181, 183, 260, 315 and France 370 estates in 124–8, 130, 146, 149–50, hereditary provinces 7, 13, 169, 316 153–4, 158, 163 population 271 judiciary 126 and Prussia 8, 248, 369–71 nobility 87–9, 127–8, 143–65 see also Habsburg monarchy, Vienna population 263, 271 Austrian Kreis 132, 174 revolt 84–7, 153, 241, 253, 358 Austrian Succession, war (1740–8) 130, size 263 176, 369 territories 3, 124 Austro-Prussian War (1866) 8, 132, 202 see also Hussites Avaux, Claude de Mesmes count de 32 Boisserée, Sulpiz 68 border, see Military Frontier Bachmann, Georg 359 Bosnia 260, 263 Baden, margraviate 7, 144–5, 149, 155 Bouillon, duchy 27 Baden-Durlach, margraviate 22 Bozzolo 318 balance of power 33–4, 36–7, 42, 44, Brabant 209 46–7, 49 Brandenburg, electorate 7, 183 Bamberg 328 court 104, 330–1 banking 265, 270, 340–1 and Empire 54, 101, 129, 155, 179 Bapaume 81 and France 27 Barbosa, Duarte 346 and Sweden 21, 23 Barcelona 29 see also Hohenzollerns, Prussia Basle 2, 337 Brandenburg-Ansbach, margraviate 148, Basle, treaty (1795) 69, 192 152 Bastille 54 Brandenburg-Bayreuth, margraviate 162 battles, see individual entries Bratislava (Pressburg, Pozsony) 182, 272, Batthyány family 276 279 Bavaria, duchy, later (1623) electorate Brazil 28, 345 and (1806) kingdom 23, 183, 194, 245, Breslau bishop of 143, 159 370 Bretholz, Bertold 137 court 319, 331 Breuer, Peter 326 electoral title 102, 108 Brewer, John 239 and Empire 52, 65, 79, 127–8 Brieg, duchy 152, 159 and France 27, 29 Britain 5, 19–20, 249, 282, 369 see also Wittelsbachs imperial ambitions 350 Bayreuth see Brandenburg-Bayreuth see also Hanover Belgium 3, 316 Brno 25 Belvedere 228 Bruderzwist (Brothers’ Quarrel) 32, 89, 358 Benecke, Gerhard 243 Bruegel the Elder, Pieter 327 Benrath 331 Brunswick-Lüneburg, duchy 7, 102 [→ B] Berlin 319, 330 Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, duchy 5 Bernhard von Cles, cardinal, bishop of Brussels 82, 180 Trent 1514–39 341[→ Cles?] Buczacz, treaty (1672) 283 Bernstorff, A.P. 302–3 Buda, town 206, 262, 266 Bernstorff, Johann Hartwig Ernst 300 Bugey 191 Bianca Maria Sforza, empress of Bulgaria 260 Maximilian I 341 Buquoy family 87–9 Bireley, Robert 168–9 Buquoy, Charles Bonaventura de Bismarck, Otto von 9 Longueville count de 79–89 Bodin, Jean 35, 187 Burgundian booty 337–9 Bohemia, kingdom 344 Burgundian Kreis 80, 82, 89, 174, 204–6, constitution 168 208–9 index 387

Burgundian treaty see Augsburg, treaty and Netherlands 204–7 (1548) power 3 Burgundy Charles VI, emperor 1711–40 2, 107, 114 and Habsburgs 7, 169 Charles VII, emperor 1742–5 2–3, 89 territories 3 Charles I, king of England and Scotland see also Netherlands 1625–49 352, 365 Burkhardt, Johannes 11–12 Charles VIII, king of France 1483–98 80 Büsch, Otto 195 Charles XII, king of Sweden Byzantine empire 2 1697–1718 256, 284–5, 288 Charles (Carlo) III, duke of Savoy 1504–35 Calvinism 21, 25, 213, 255, 329 222–3 Cambaya 346 Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy Cambrai, peace congress 369 1467–77 80, 337 Cambrai, treaty (1529) 80 Charles Emanuel I, duke of Savoy Campen, Jacob van 319 1580–1630 193, 224–6 Cananor 346–7 Charles Emanuel III, king of Sardinia Candid, Peter 329 1730–73 197, 199, 230 Carl Albrecht see Charles VII Charles Louis, elector Palatine Carlo II Gonzaga-Nevers, duke of Mantua 1648–80 106 1628–37 228 Charlottenburg 330 Caroline, princess of Baden 65 Chernihov 248 Carpi 219 Chiasso 195 Castell family 272 Chieri 195 Castelnuovo Calcea 228 Christian, prince of Hessen 82 Castiglione, Baldassare 96 Christian IV, king of Denmark-Norway Castiglione della Stiviere 218, 235 1588–1648 294 Castile 30 Christian VII, king of Denmark-Narway Catalonia 29 1766–1808 299 Cateau-Cambrésis, treaty (1559) 195, 225 Chodkiewicz, Jan Karol 255 Catherine II ‘the Great’, Russian empress Cisleithania 132 1762–96 5 Cleves, duchy 206–7 Catholicism 14, 81, 87, 150, 274, 282 coat of arms, imperial 2 cattle trade 271 Cocconato 221–4, 228–9, 234 Cecilia Renata, Habsburg archduchess and Cochin 347 queen of Poland 1632–44 360 Cologne, electorate 101 ceremony 93–4, 100–1, 103–19, 130, 176, Cologne, imperial city 82, 212, 261, 325, 276–7, 350, 363, 368 341 see also coronations, funerals Colombia 344 Cervo 221 colonies 28, 293, 370 Ceva 221 communication 93–4, 169, 179, 210, 295, Ceylon 344, 346 297 Chambéry 191 see also postal service Chamisso, Adelbert 60 composite state, see states Charlemagne, emperor 800–14 1, 45, 316 Concordia, marquisate 235 Charles, archduke of Styria 1564–90 175 Condé, Louis II de Bourbon, prince Charles IV, king of Bohemia from 1347 and de 29 emperor 1355–78 126, 143, 192, 223, Confederation of the Rhine (1806–13) 8, 231, 315 52–3, 57, 69, 70–1, 76 Charles V, king of Spain from 1516 and Confederation of Sandomierz (1704) 285 emperor 1519–58 80–1, 125, 170 [→ S?] art patronage 317, 338, 353 Confederation of Tarnogrod (1715) 287 and Italy 219–20, 222 [→ T?] legislation 275 Congo 27 388 index

Copenhagen 295–6, 303–6, 311 Czechoslovakia 135–6 coronations Czechs Bohemian 111, 118, 125 and Germans 85, 121–2, 131–40 French 1 Hungarian 118 Dalberg, Karl von, elector of Mainz imperial 100, 104–9, 116, 29, 276, 279, 1803–6 371 353, 357 Dalmatia 260 Polish 283 Danish language 295–311 Correggio 219 Defenestration of Prague (1618) 157 Corsica 2 Del Caretto family 217, 226–7, 234 Cortona, Pietro da 318 Denmark 282, 284–5 Cosimo II de’ Medici, grand duke of culture 294–312 Tuscany 1609–21 358 and Empire 5, 14, 139, 260 Cossacks 242, 248–50, 254 government 293–4, 302–3, 305 counts see imperial counts Desana 222–3, 226, 228, 235 Court Chancellery Detmold 328 Austrian 178–80 Deulino, treaty (1618) 248 Bohemian 179 diet court offices, honorific 94–5, 97, 100–17 Croatian 262 Court War Council 179, 267 Hungarian 262, 272 courtiers 81, 93, 95–119, 160–1, 176, 181, see also Reichstag, sejm 285 Dietrichstein family 144, 157 courts Dietrichstein, Adam von 211 Danish 299, 312 Diez, Friedrich von 65–6 French 95–6 Dillenburg 211 German princely 104, 191, 272, 325–6, diplomacy 26, 179, 213, 224, 229–30, 266, 328–32 290, 348 Hungarian 318 Dohm, Christian Wilhelm von 55 Spanish 353–4, 363 Dolgoruki Grigorij Fedorovitch 288 Swedish 309 domestication 118 travell?ing 95–6 Doria family 217, 225, 231, 234–5 see also Habsburg monarchy, Vienna Doria, Giancarlo 353 courts, judicial see Reichshofrat, Dresden 57, 319, 330–1 Reichskammergericht Droysen, Gustav 189, 281 Cramer, Andreas 298 Dunkirk 29 Cranach the Elder, Lukas 317, 324 Dürer, Albrecht 317–18, 321, 323, 324, Cremonini, Cinzia 219 326, 327 Crevacuore 235 Düsseldorf 331 Croatia, kingdom 260, 262, 267 Dutch Republic 44 Cromwell, Oliver 29–30 and Empire 3, 13–14, 205, 213–15 crowns international influence 27–8, 33, 368 Bohemian 4, 92, 111 population 27 Hungarian 4, 92, 111, 279 Dutch Revolt (1568–1648) 3, 28, 89, imperial 1, 52, 279, 350–2 204–5, 209–15 crusades 80–1 dynasticism 3, 7, 13, 26, 31–2, 148, 193–4, culture see material culture, print culture 218, 241–2 Cumania 260 Cuneo 225 Edelmeyer, Friedrich 220, 225 Curtius, Marcus 64–5 Edict of Restitution (1629) 21, 245 customs duties 272–3 Edward IV, king of England see also taxation 1461–83 337–8 Cyprus 222 Eggenberg family 145, 157, 162 Czarniecki, Stefan 255 Eggenberg, Hans Ulrich prince 181 Czech language 134 Eighty Years War see Dutch Revolt index 389 electors (Kurfürsten) Ergang, Robert R. 242 ceremonial titles 101–8, 112–15, 122, eschatology 1 124–5, 130, 140, 146, 172 Esterházy family 276 college of 130, 173 Esterházy, Pál, palatine of Hungary 276 constitutional position 6, 20, 100, Esztergom (Gran) 260 121–2, 139 estates courts 92 landed 85–7, 160 numbers 6, 117, 129–30, 173 provincial 124–30, 143–4 policies 170 territorial 283, 285 Eleonora Gonzaga, empress of see also imperial Estates Ferdinand II 357–8 Eugene, prince of Savoy, general 369 Eleonore Magdalena, empress of European Union 10–12 Leopold I 279 precursors to 43–4 Elias, Norbert 95, 98 Evans, Robert J.W. 86, 94, 176 Elizabeth I, queen of England 1558–1603 350 Farnese, Alessandro 81 Elliott John H. 290 Ferdinand I, emperor 1558–64 Emanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy art patronage 338, 341 1553–80 195, 223–4, 226 court 92 Emilia, region 233 and Habsburg monarchy 125, 129, emperor 152–3, 167, 172–3 interest in 91 and Netherlands 204–8 prayers for 56, 62 Ferdinand II, emperor 1619–37 prerogatives 6, 13, 20, 188 art patronage 353, 357–9, 363 residence 92, 174, 315 coronation 107 as threat 48 and Habsburg monarchy 129, 156–8, Empire 168–9, 172, 175, 178, 180–1 constitution 5–9, 20–1, 35, 37–8, 47–8, powers 245, 257 52, 58, 73, 93, 103–4, 174, 371 and Netherlands 214 culture 316–32 and Thirty Years War 21, 24, 84–9, demise 1, 7–8, 12, 51–76, 131, 192, 247–8 193, 365 and Europe 43–4, 315 Ferdinand III, emperor 1637–57 21, 28, 31, extent 2–3, 28, 315–16 129, 279 federalism in 20, 45, 183, 207–8 art patronage 361–3, 365 and Germany 15, 52, 300, 315 and imperial Italy 228 international status 1–2, 4, 27, 367–71 legislation 274 interpretations 8–12, 15, 74–6, 131–41, Ferdinand IV, king of the Romans 182–3, 187, 202–4, 239–41, 257, 319–23, 1653–4 129, 360 331 Ferdinand Karl, archduke of Tyrol 366 as model 44–50 feudalism, see jurisdiction, subfeuds as nation 8, 11, 52–76, 139–40, 321–2 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 55, 60 possible revival 72, 131 Fichte, Johanna Maria 55 as state 11, 183, 240 Filiberto II, duke of Savoy 1497–1504, as system 187–8, 367–71 229 see also imperial translation, Second Finale 235 Empire finances, see taxation England 291, 311, 336, 350 Fischer von Erlach, Johann 318, 330 monarchy 1 Flanders 2 state 239–40 Flensburg 295 see also Britain Florence 318, 323, 329, 354, 361 English language 309 Folkes, Herbert G. 38 Enlightenment 37, 70 Forgách family 276 cross-cultural influences 294–312 Förster Friedrich 281 interpretations 134 fortifications 195, 239, 261, 266 390 index

France Galicia 260 and Austria 200, 370 Galle, Conelius 365 court 95–6 Garam 272 culture 311 Garlenda 226 and Empire 12, 22, 193, 206–7, 316, Giberti, Gianmatteo 357 370 Genoa 191, 193, 220–1, 225, 234 expansion 3, 7, 13, 28, 80 Gentz, Friedrich von 55, 61, 68 and German princes 23, 27, 288 George of Poděbrady, king of Bohemia hostility towards 65, 67, 69, 76 1458–71 136, 150–1 monarchy 1 George the Bearded, duke of Saxony population 27 1500–39 341 state 239–40 George William, elector of Brandenburg Franche-Comté 3, 80, 316 1619–40 244 Franco-German War (1870–1) 8, 202 German Confederation (1815–66) 8, 74 François-Louis de Bourbon, Prince de German Feud (Tyskerfejden) 296, 302–7, Conti 282 [→ C?] 312 Frankfurt am Main, imperial city 325 German language 75, 135, 298, 310 imperial coronations at 104–6, 116, 353 in Denmark 295, 300, 310, 312 Parliament 131 Germans Francis I, emperor 1745–65 230 in Bohemia 121 Francis II, emperor 1792–1806 1, 10, 52 in Hungary 261 Frederick I, emperor 1152–90 122 Germany Frederick III, emperor 1440–93 151 Federal Republic 9, 11, 64 Frederick I, elector of Brandenburg from unification 8, 64, 131–2 1688 and king in Prussia 1701–13 191, see also Empire 197, 198, 330 Gex 191 Frederick II ‘the Great’, king of Prussia Ghent, Pacification of (1576) 212 1740–86 27, 69, 192, 200, 241, 243, Gierowski Józef Andrzej 281, 284 246–8, 318, 370 Glandeves 223 Frederick V, king of Denmark-Norway Glatz, county 144, 150–1 1746–66 299 Glogau, duchy 143 Frederick IV, elector Palatine Goa 346–7 1583–1610 329 Goertz, Johann Eustach count von 54, 60 Frederick V, elector Palatine 1610–23 329 Goethe, Catharina Elisabeth 52, 54, 56 Frederick William, the ‘Great Elector’ of Goethe, Johann Wolfgang 52–4, 56–60, Brandenburg 1640–88 191, 241, 246 62, 304, 332 Frederick William I, king of Prussia Goldast von Haiminsfeld, Melchior 158 1713–40 194, 197–8, 246, 248 Golden Bull (1356) 94, 102–11, 117 Freiberg (Saxony) 317, 326 Gonzaga, dynasty 217–18, 225–7, 234–5 French Revolution 54, 76, 201, 369 see also Eleonora Gonzaga Friedland, duchy 145 Gonzaga, Guglielmo 224 Frinco 226, 228 Gonzaga, Vespasiano 218 Frisia, Dutch province 206 Gorzegno 228 Fronde (1648–53) 29 Gosiewski, Wincenty Korwin 255 Fugger family 337, 340–4, 346 Goslar, treaty (1642) 22 Fugger, Anton 338–40 Gotthard, Axel 25 Fugger, Hans Jakob 339 Göttingen university 67 Fugger, Jakob 337–8, 340–1 Gottsched, Johann Christoph 62 Fugger-Thurzo firm 342 Gran, see Esztergom Fulda 331 Grandson, battle (1476) 337 funerals 111, 277–8 Gras, Caspar 354–5 Fürstenberg family 144–5, 149 Grasse 223 Fürstenbund (1785) 192 Graz 82, 92, 174, 181, 271–2, 355 index 391

Great Britain, see Britain Heinrich IV, lord of Plauen 1482–1520 Great Northern War (1700–21) 14, 242, 127, 153 246 Heinrich V, lord of Plauen 1520–54 153 Grendi, Edoardo 220–1 Heinrich Julius, duke of Brunswick- Groningen 106 Wolfenbüttel 1589–1613 113, 328 Grünewald, Matthias 317 Heintz, Joseph 327, 355–6 Guastalla 218–19 Held, Wieland 291 Guelders 206, 213 Henckel family 272 Guelph dynasty 7, 22, 155, 232, 282 Henneberg, Berthold von, elector of Mainz guilds 274 1484–1504 5 Guldberg, Ove Hoegh 300, 302 Henrician Articles (1573) 287 Gundelach, Matthias 357 Henry IV, king of France 1589–1610 49, Güns, see Kőszeg 83, 353 Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden Herbst family 272 1611–32 21–2, 33, 245, 249, 294 Herder, Johann Gottfried 332 Gustavus III, king of Sweden 1771–92 309 Herwart, trading firm 343, 347 Győr (Raab) 261, 267, 272 Hessen, landgraviate 7, 32 Hessen-Darmstadt, landgraviate 5 Haake, Paul 281 Hessen-Kassel, landgraviate 5, 22, 241 Habsburg dynasty 33–4, 80, 89, 282, Heyne, Christian Gottlob 66, 68 354–5, 364 Hintze, Otto 190, 231 Austrian 2–5, 7, 13–14, 26, 30, 92, 241, Hirschvogel, trading firm 344, 347 253, 316 historiography see individual entries e.g. Lorraine 13, 370 Marxist historiography Spanish 3, 28, 30–2, 253 Hocher, Johann Paul 179 Habsburg monarchy Hoecke, Jan van den 361–3, 365–6 court 13, 91–119, 158, 160–1, 270, 315, Hoefnagel, Georg 329 318, 327–32, 349–66 Hofämter, see court offices and Empire 2, 4, 13, 167–83 Hofstaat, see courtiers estates 169, 172, 267 Hohenzollerns, dynasty finances 263–8, 341 interpretations 134 and France 25, 27–8, 80 possessions 7 government 167–78 status 4, 102, 191 nobility 79–89, 143–65, 175, 275–6 see also Brandenburg, Prussia possessions 2–4, 7, 124, 205–6, 241, 260 Holberg, Ludvig 296–7, 299, 310 religion 25, 87, 157–9, 161, 176, 274 Hollar, Wenzel 365 size 263 Holstein 302–3, 312 see also Austria, Bohemia, Hungary Holstein-Gottorp, duchy 5, 61 Hagerup, Eiler 300 Holy Alliance (1815) 371 Hainault 87 Holy Roman Empire, see Empire Halle 325 Homer 61–2 Halle university 87 Homonnai Drugeth family 276 Hamburg 56, 295, 298 Hormuz 346, 348 Hanover, duchy, electorate (1692), Hornes family 88 kingdom (1815) 7, 102, 129–30 Hubertusburg, treaty (1763) 369 court 331 Huguenots 197 union with Britain 5, 282, 291 Hungarian, language 269 see also Guelph dynasty Hungary Hardenberg, Karl August von 201 constitution 168, 276 Hartmann, Peter Claus 11–12 economy 270–3 Heem, Cornelius de 329 and Empire 14, 139, 172, 181, 183, Heiberg, Peter Andreas 303 259–79, 322 Heidelberg 329 finances 264–8, 273 392 index

(Hungary, cont.) imperial vice chancellor 110, 114 and Habsburgs 3, 92, 168, 175, 177, 182, imperial villages 188 259–79 Incisa 222, 223, 227 Ottomans in 263–4, 266 India 329, 344–7 revolts 85 Inner Austria 181, 267 hunting 92, 96 Innsbruck 92, 169, 174, 270, 354–5, 364 Hunyadi dynasty 143 insignia 105, 111, 277–8, 350–2, 358 hussars 276 imperial 1, 92, 108, 112, 277–8 Hussites 124, 144, 150, 172 see also crowns Huth, Heinrich Wilhelm 303 international system see system Hýbl, František 133–4 Isabella Clara Eugenie, archduchess of the Netherlands 81–2 iconoclasm 329 Istanbul 266 Illésházy family 276 Italy 3 Imhof, trading firm 343, 347 see also imperial Italy immediacy (Reichsunmittelbarkeit) 58, Ivan IV ‘the Terrible’, Russian tsar 1533–84, 148, 158 249 Imperial Aulic Council see Reichshofrat Ivrea 195 imperial church 5–6, 21, 328 imperial circles see Kreise Jabonowski, Stanisław 256 imperial cities 5, 92, 173 Jagiellon dynasty 124, 143, 150, 263 imperial coronations, see coronations James I, king of Scotland 1567–1625 and imperial counts 6 England 1603–25 351 imperial courts 2, 371 Jan, prince of Nassau 212–13 see also Reichshofrat, János Zsigmond (John Sigismund) Reichskammergericht Szapolyai, prince of Transylvania Imperial Chamber Court see 1540–71 269 Reichskammergericht Jena 58, 60 Imperial Diet see Reichstag Jena, battle (1806) 59, 201 imperial elections 4, 54, 104, 108–9, 116 jewelry 14, 279, 333–48 imperial Estates (Reichsstände) Joanelli family 272 and emperor 48, 170, 205 John II Casimir, king of Poland numbers 5–8 1648–68 255–7 interaction 92, 94, 100, 197 John Casimir, prince of Pfalz-Lautern rights 26, 112–14, 188 1576–92 212 see also Reichstag, titles Joseph I, emperor 1705–11 129, 171, imperial insignia (Reichsinsignien), see 229–30 insignia Joseph II, emperor 1765–90 130, 370 imperial Italy (Reichsitalien) Jülich-Cleves succession dispute 83 and Empire 11, 13, 178, 192–3, 200, 224, jurisdiction 226, 228–31 conflicts 228, 233 extent 2, 316 feudal 5–6, 26, 122–5, 130, 172–3, 193, interpretations 217–20, 231–2 205, 207, 213–14, 217–36 and Spain 82–3, 219, 234 imperial 2, 13, 100, 122–5, 173, 205–6, imperial knights (Reichsritter) 6 294 imperial law 10, 58, 73 sovereign 4 imperial reform 5 spiritual 226 imperial translation, ?? 1 Imperial Turkish Tax (Reichstürkensteuer) Kalisch, Johannes 281 170, 205–6, 210 Kalousek, Josef 132–3, 135 see also taxation Kamieniec-Podolsk 283 imperial vicars 104, 192, 219–20, 224, 226, Kandahar 348 228–31 Kanizsa 267 index 393

Kant, Immanuel 307 League of Princes (1785), see Fürstenbund Kapras, Jan 135 legal practice 93 Karl August, duke of Saxony-Weimar see also law 1758–1828 371 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 46 Karlowitz, treaty (1699) 283 Liegnitz, duchy 152, 159 [→ Lieg . . .] Karlsruhe 267, 331 Leipzig 325–6 Karwicki, Stanislaw Dunin 287 Lemgo 328 Kaschau see Kassa Leopold I, emperor 1658–1705 21, 31–2, Kassa (Kaschau, Košice) 271–2, 274 104, 171, 177 Kassel 329 Leopold V, archduke of Tyrol 1625–32 Kéry family 276 354 Khevenhüller, Johann 348 Leopold Wilhelm, archduke 32, 360–2, 366 Khotyn, battle (1621) 248–9 Leszczyński family 251 Khotyn, battle (1673) 256 Leszczyński, Józef 286 Kilian, Wolfgang 357 Laigueglia 226 [→ to Laig . . .] Kircholm, battle (1605) 248 Liechtenstein family 145, 148, 157, 159 Kiszka, Janusz 255 Liechtenstein, Karl prince 157–8 Kliment, Josef 135–6 Liechtenstein, Karl Eusebius prince 161, Kliszow, battle (1702) 285 163–4 Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb 57, 298 Liguria 217, 220–1, 223, 225, 226, 228, 233, Klosterneuburg 331 236 Koenigsberger, Helmut G. 290 Lill, Rudolf 188 Koháry family 276 Limpurg family 102, 110 Koniecpolski, Stanisław 255 Linz 83 Konopczyński, Aleksander 251 Lippay, György, archbishop of Esztergom Konopczynski, Stanislaw 251, 254–5 260 Köppen, Johann Heinrich Justus 61 Lippe, principality 328 Korsun, battle (1648) 254 Lippi, Lorenzo 361 Kőszeg (Güns) 275 Lisbon 342–3, 348 Košice, see Kassa Liszthy family 276 Krafft, Hans Ulrich 348 Livonia 283, 285 Kraft, Adam 326 Lobkowitz family 145, 148, 157, 159, 162–3 Kraków 282 Lobkowitz, Ferdinand August prince 163 Kreise 20, 47–8, 173, 247, 253 Lobkowitz, Wenzel Eusebius prince 164 assemblies in 58, 174, 241 Lodomeria 260 see also individual entries Lombardy 218, 220, 233, 316 Kupisz, Dariusz 250 Long Turkish War (1591–1606) 84, 264, 268 Lamberg family 145 Lorraine, duchy 3, 13–14, 29, 201, 316 Landi 218 Louis II, king of Hungary and Bohemia Lang, Matthäus 241 1516–26 334 Langhe 217, 221, 224, 226, 229–31, 234–5 Louis XI, king of France 1461–83 80 Lasaris 226 Louis XIII, king of France 1610–43 362 Lasne, Michel 362 Louis XIV, king of France 1643–1715 20, law 29, 32, 38, 49, 95, 191, 242, 253, 352 codes 175, 274–5 Louis XVI, king of France 1774–92 54 customary 242 Löwenstein-Wertheim family 145 Roman 242 Lübeck 325 rule of 41 Lubomirski, Stanisław 251, 255–7 statute 242 Ludwigsburg 331 see also imperial law, legal practice Luise, duchess of Saxony-Weimar 58, 65 League of Augsburg, war see Nine Years Lusatia 122, 124, 172–4, 286, 315 War Lutheranism 21, 25, 152–3, 293, 301 394 index

Luxembourg 3 Masserano 229, 232, 235 Luycx, Frans 360, 363, 366 material culture 333–48 Lyons 341 Matthias, emperor 1612–19, 82–4, 89, 106, Lyons, treaty (1601) 191 129, 172, 180 art patronage 352–3, 356–7 Mably, Gabriel Bonnot abbé de 49 in Netherlands 212 Maccagno 220 Maurice, landgrave of Hessen-Kassel Madrid 352 1592–1627 329 Madrid, treaty (1526) 80 Maximilian I, emperor 1493–1519 27, 80, Magdeburg 126, 325 169–70 magnates art patronage 325–6, 333, 339, 341 Bohemian 150–2 as emperor 111, 136, 261 Hungarian 177, 275–6 and Italy 218, 229 Polish 250 and Netherlands 204–5 Ukrainian 250–1 Maximilian II, emperor 1564–76, 269 see also nobility as archduke 263 Mainz, electorate 101, 104, 110, 114, 168 coronation 111 see also archchancellor and Italy 223 Mainz, city 269 and Netherlands 210–11, 214 Malaspina family 234 Mecklenburg, duchy 5 Maler, Hans 335 mediatization 8 Mallet, Paul Henri 301 Medici, Claudia de’ 354–6, 361 Malling, Ove 301, 310 Medici, Gian Gastone 149 Malý, Karel 139 medievalism 74–5 Manlich family 272 Meier, Friedrich 65 Mannheim 331 Melander, Peter Eppelmann 25 Mantua, duchy 227, 231, 233 Melk 331 Marchthaler, Veit 265, 270 Memmingen, imperial city 339 Margaret of York, wife of Charles the Mérode family 88 Bold 338 Merseburg 332 Maria of Spain, empress of Maximilian II Meyssens, Joannes 365–6 351 Milan 82, 89, 220, 228, 231, 233 Maria Anna of Spain, empress of military see armies Ferdinand III 279, 361, 365 Military Frontier 264–8 Maria Anna, queen of Spain 364 Military Revolution 270 Maria Leopoldina, empress of Mioghi 221 Ferdinand III 361 Mirandola 218, 231, 235 Maria Josepha, archduchess 288 Modena 231, 235 Maria Paulovna, Russian grand modernization 124, 131, 187, 201, 369, 371 duchess 59 Mohács, battle (1526) 168, 263 Maria-Maddalena de Biblia 82–3, 87–8 Moldavia 248 [→ B?] Mombercelli 228 Maria Theresa, empress 1745–80 89, 144, monarchy 176 longevity 1 Marnix, Philip 212–13 universal 212 marriage, dynastic 4–5, 26, 31, 149–52, see also Habsburg monarchy 155, 160–1, 222, 224, 226, 288 Monferrato 221–5, 227–31, 234 Martinic, Jaroslav Bořita 157 Moravia 121–2, 124, 128, 130, 137, 143, 150, Marxist historiography 138–9 157, 172, 315 Mary of Burgundy, wife of Maximilian I constitution 168 27, 80, 333–4 Moscow 248 Mary of Hungary 206 Moser, Friderich Carl 109 Mary Magdalene, grand duchess of Moser, Johann Jakob 103, 109, 111, 116 Tuscany 358 Montagnini, Carlo 230–1 index 395

Mozzarelli, Cesare 217 Ödenburg, see Sopron Mühlberg, battle (1547) 207 Odense 295 Müller, Adam 61 Old Empire, see Empire Müller, Johannes von 55, 61, 65, 67–9 Olivares, Gaspar de Guzmán, count-duke Münchhausen, Karl von 67 of 33 Munich 329 Oneglia 191 Münster, town 12 opera 303 Münster, treaty (1648) 19, 28 Oppeln, duchy 155 Münsterberg, duchy 150–2, 155 Orsini family 154 Murialdo 226 Osnabrück, town 12 Muscovy 1, 242, 248 Osnabrück, treaty (1648) 19, 33, 167 see also Russia Ossoliński, Jerzy 254 Musi, Aurelio 219 Ostende company 370 Mytens, Daniel 352 Ostrogski, Mikołaj 254 Ottheinrich, elector Palatine 1556–9 329 Nagykanizsa, see Kanizsa Otto I, German king (936) and emperor Nagyszombat (Tyrnau, Trnava) 272, 962–73 1 274 Ottoman empire 42, 253, 343 Naples 85 imperial title 2 Napoleon, emperor of the French 1804–14 size 3 defeat 76 threat posed by 25, 30, 128, 175, 264, and Empire 1, 52, 61, 65, 70 369 interpretations 67 Ottoman wars, see Turkish Wars Napoleonic wars (1802–15) 7, 54, 70–1, Ottonian dynasty 101 131, 201, 368 Oxenstierna, Axel, Swedish chancellor 23 Nassau, principality 7, 211 nationalism 9, 188–9, 293, 296, 301–7, Paar family 181–2 311–12 Pac family 251–2, 256 Nazi historiography 137–8 Pacta conventa (Polish) 283 negotia remissa 20 Padan network 217–19 Neiße, duchy 143 Paderborn 328 Netherlands 336 Palacký, František 131 and Empire 11, 203–15, 260, 316 Palatinate, electorate 101–2, 104, 344 Spanish 3, 79–82, 87, 210 and Bohemia 124, 128 territories 3 court 329 see also Burgundy dynastic ties 5 Neuhäusel (Nové Zámky) 85 and Empire 231 newsletters 267 see also Wittelsbachs newspapers 93, 307, 310–11 palatine, Hungarian 275–6 Niebuhr, Berthold Georg 66 Paler family 272 Nine Years War (1688–97) 197, 198, 233 Pálffy family 276 nobility 79–89, 93, 85, 127–8, 143–65, 199, Pallavicino 219 222, 242, 251–2, 275–6 Palm, Johann Philipp 64–5, 73 imperial 85, 145 Pánek, Jaroslav 168–9 see also magnates, titles Pantoja de la Cruz, Juan 351 Nördlingen, battle (1634) 359–60 papacy 82, 220, 232, 370 Northern wars see Great, Second Pappenheim family 102, 104, 112–13 Norway 295 Paris 80, 91, 323, 332, 366 Notke, Bernt 325 Paris, treaty (1763) 367, 369 Novellara 218, 235 Parma, duchy 193, 218, 231 Novello 228 Parma, Margaret of 210 Nuremberg, imperial city 112, 206, 265–6, Paroldo 226 270–1, 274, 324–7, 339, 346 Parrott, David 240 Nymphenburg 331 Passau 327 396 index

Patin, Charles 91 Polish Succession, war (1733–5) 227, 242 patronage Polygnotus 62 artistic 14, 294, 313, 327–32, 349–65 Pomis, Giovanni Pietro 364 political 257 Pontormo, Jacopo da 318 Pavia, battle (1525) 80 Portia, Johann Ferdinand von 31 peace treaties, see individual entries portraiture 14, 349–66 Pečr, Andreas 114 Portugal 28–30, 33, 325, 343 Peenemünde 245 Post, Pieter 319 Pegu 345–6 postal service 60, 65–6, 69, 71–2, 175, Peirani, Giampaolo 229–30, 232 180–2, 264 Peñaranda, Gaspar de Bracamonte Potocki, Mikołaj 254 count 25, 27, 30 Potsdam 330 Persia 343, 348 Pourbus the Younger, Frans 355–6 personal unions 5, 14, 129, 262, 275, Pozsony see Bratislava 281–2, 290–1 Pozzo, Cassiano dal 365 Pesne, Antoine 319 Pragmatic Sanction (1549) 208 Peter I ‘the Great’, Russian tsar Pragmatic Sanction (1713–23) 14, 175 1689–1725 249, 284, 286, 288 Prague 31, 85, 87, 173, 270 Pfalz-Neuburg, principality 23, 256 imperial court in 92–3, 117, 174, 315, Pfalz-Sulzbach, principality 162 327–9, 339, 350 Philip II, king of Spain 1556–98 81 Prague, treaty (1635) 22–3, 244–5, 253–4, Philip III, king of Spain 1598–1621 83–4, 257 351 Pram, Christen 304 and Netherlands 209–11 prelates see imperial church Philip IV, king of Spain 1621–65 29–31, Přemyslid dynasty 122, 143, 150, 152 354, 363–4 Prešporok, see Bratislava Philip I the Handsome, king of Castile Press, Volker 93, 172, 183, 367 1504–6 333 Pressburg, see Bratislava Piacentino 231 primogeniture 154, 175 Piacenza 193, 218 print culture 297–8, 303–5, 307–11 Piast dynasty 143–4, 150, 152–3, 159 privy council, Habsburg 176–9 Picardy 80 privy councilors Piccolomini family 29 propaganda 294, 301, 357 Piccolomini, Octavio 29 Prussia Pico family 218 army 194–5, 198–9, 240–1, 369 Piedmont 195–7, 201, 220–1, 224, 233 and Austria 8, 248, 369–71 Piombino 219 and Empire 70, 191–2, 200–2, 243–4, 283 Plauen 155 expansion 75, 190–202, 284 Pock, Georg 347 and France 54, 56, 60, 69, 71 Podĕbrad dynasty 143, 150–3, 155, 159 interpretations 188–90, 201–2 poetry 59 and Poland 249 Poland 3, 315, 322 Prusso-centric historiography 8, 64, Polignac, Melchior abbé de 38 75, 189, 281 Polock 249 see also Brandenburg, Hohenzollerns Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Pskov 249 collective security 243–4, 248–57, 287 public peace 183, 211 economy 286 Pufendorf, Samuel 39, 187, 239 monarchy 241–2, 256 Pyliavtsi, battle (1648) 250 nobles 287–8 Pyrenees, treaty (1659) 29, 80 origins 1 partitions 4, 242, 281, 370 Raab, see Győr revolts 242, 248 Radicati, counts of 228 and Saxony 5, 14, 281–91 Radziejowski, Michał 283 index 397

Radziwiłł family 251–3, 255–6 Rosenstand-Goiske, Johan Philip 305 Rastatt 331 Rothe, Tyge 290, 300, 304, 310 Rawa Ruska 284 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 46–8, 307 Rechberg, Aloys von 52 Rowlands, Guy 240 Redlich, Fritz 79 Rožmberk family 85, 154–5 Redlich, Oswald 167 Rožmberk, Vilém of 127, 154 Reformation, Protestant 6, 10, 204, 274, Rubens, Peter Paul 319, 353, 356, 359–61 293 Rudolf II, emperor 1576–1612 1, 32, 81, 83, Regensburg, imperial city 58, 105, 264, 113, 129, 172, 180 327 art patronage 318, 327–9, 332, 339, 348, Reichstag meetings at 20, 52, 54, 130, 350–6 163, 370 court 92, 315 Rehlingen family 272 and Netherlands 212–14 Reich see Empire Rurik dynasty 1 Reichard, Heinrich August Ottokar 71 Russia Reichshofrat 56, 93, 113, 124, 178, 235 and Empire 5, 59 Reichskammergericht 47, 56, 73, 93, 124, imperial title 2 130, 173, 205–6, 208, 370 influence 294, 368–9 Reichskanzler, see archchanchellor monarchy 1 Reichskirche, see imperial church and Poland 284–6, 288, 291 Reichskreise, see Kreise size 3 Reichstag 123–4, 276 business 20, 100, 125–6, 204–8, 269, 370 Sabbioneta 218 meetings 5, 183, 206–7, 211, 213–14, 261, Sadeler, Egidius 327, 353 266, 269 Sadeler, Marcus 357 origins 94 Saint-Gotthard, battle (1664) 88 permanent 20, 52, 104, 179 Saint-Pierre, Charles abbé de 12, 35–50 representation at 129, 148, 158–9, 163, Sainte-Croix, Bigot de 198 174, 192, 203 Salicento 226 see also electors Salm, Hubert 245 Reichsunmittelbarkeit see immediacy Saluzzo 221, 224 Reichsvizekanzler see imperial vice Salzburg 270 chancellor Sapieha family 256–7 Reinhard, Franz Volkmar 69 Sassello 221 Reinhard, Wolfgang 11, 26, 190 Schäufflein, Hans 326 Reinhold, Karl Leonhard 60–1 Sardinia 2, 188–9, 193–4, 227 religion in imperial politics 21–7, 56, 64, see also Savoy 183, 209–11, 214, 283 Savigliano 195 Rembrandt 319 Savoy, duchy Renaissance 316–18, 362 army 195–9 Repgen, Konrad 19 development 191–202, 222–4 Reunions, French policy of 26 and Empire 13, 191–3, 200–1 Rheinbund (1654–8) 26 interpretations 188–90, 201–2, 217 Rhine Confederation see Confederation of see also Piedmont, Sardinia the Rhine Saxe-Lauenburg family 145, 149 Riemenschneider, Tilman 324 Saxe-Lauenburg, Anna Maria Francisca Rigaud, Hyacinthe 352 duchess of 149 Robertson, John 290 Saxe-Lauenburg, Franz Albrecht duke Rocroi, battle (1643) 29 of 25 Roman empire 1, 23 Saxe-Lauenburg, Julius Heinrich duke Romanov dynasty 5 of 163 Rome 318, 330, 332, 348, 360 Saxe-Weimar, duchy 57, 59 Rome, treaty (1957) 9 see also Weimar 398 index

Saxon duchies 332 Sigismund III, king of Poland see also Saxe-Weimar 1587–1632 255–6 Saxony, electorate Signorotto, Gianvittorio 219 army 245, 284, 288 Silent Sejm, Polish 249, 257, 287–8 and Bohemia 124, 128 Silesia, duchy 122, 124, 130, 143–5, 147–55, court 330–1 157–63, 182 and Empire 57, 101, 104, 110, 129, 231 and Empire 172–3, 315 government 183, 241 Prussian conquest 3, 144, 247 nobility 284–5 silver 30, 340 population 326 Sinzendorf family 102 union with Poland 5, 14, 281–91 Slavata, Vilém count 157, 163 see also Wettins Slavonia 260, 262, 267, 269 Scarampi-Crivelli 236 Slovakia 340 Schaffgotsch family 159 Smolensk 248–9 Scharnhorst, Gerhard von 69 Sneedorf, Jens 297 Schelling, Caroline 68 Sobieski, Jan, king of Poland 1674–96 251, Schiller, Friedrich 62, 304, 332 255–6 Schilling, Heinz 11–12, 187 Soissons, peace congress 369 Schimmelmann, Ernst 303 soldiers, see armies Schleiermacher, Friedrich 56 Sömmering, Samuel Thomas 60, 66, 68 Schleissenheim 331 Sopron (Ödenburg) 279 Schmalkaldic War (1546–7) 125 Soro 297, 300 Schmidt, Georg 11–12, 20, 171, 187 Souches, Louis Raduit de 25 Schmidt, Hans 240, 246 sovereignty 4–5, 8, 26, 35, 37, 39–43, 50, Schneeberg 317 82, 127, 129, 133, 146, 193, 255 Schnettger, Matthias 220 Spain 336 Schönbrunn palace 330 ‘decline’ 30–2, 368 Schroeder, Paul 367 and Dutch 28 Schüren, Johann von 343 and Empire 179, 204–12 Schwarzenberg family 145 government 1, 174, 240 Schwarzenberg, Ferdinand prince 161 and Italy 29, 82–3, 219, 234 Schwendi, Lazarus von, general 266, 269 see also Habsburgs Scotland 177, 282, 291, 311 Spanish Road 83, 89, 225 sculpture 317, 319, 324, 326, 355 Spanish Succession, war (1701–14) 4, 174, Second (German) Empire (1871–1918) 8, 197, 234 64, 134, 140 Speyer, imperial city 211, 266, 269 Second Northern War (1655–60) 242, Spigno 226 255 Spinola 226 secularisation 6 Spinola, Ambrogio 82, 359 sejm 242, 249, 254, 259, 282–3, 287–8, Spranger, Bartholomeus 327 290 Srb, Adolf 134 Sella, Domenico 218 Sri Lanka see Ceylon Senatorial Council (Polish) 287, 290 Stanislaus Leszczyński, king of Serbia 260, 263 Poland 1704–9, duke of Lorraine Serenius, Jacob 309 1737–66 285–6 Seume, Johann Gottfried 59, 67 Staszewski, Jacek 281 Seven Years War (1756–63) 194, 198, 371 states Seversk 248 authority 40 Seville 341, 343 building 188–90, 194, 200–2, 217, 239 Sforza see Bianca Maria composite 92, 146–9, 167–9, 177, 262, Sicily 194 290–1, 293–4 Siebenburger, Lukas 339 fiscal-military 239–41, 246 Sieniawski, Adam 257 see also monarchy, sovereignty Sigismund of Luxembourg, emperor statutes, see law 1410–37 192, 259–60, 262 Staufer dynasty 2, 74 index 399

Steen, Frans van der 366 Tessin, Carl Gustaf 339 Stefan Batory, king of Poland Teutonic Order 4, 119 1575–86 249, 255 Third Reich 135, 137–8, 140 Stockholm 248, 325 Thirteen Years War (1654–67) 242 Stolberg-Stolberg, Friedrich Leopold Thirty Years War (1618–1648) 19–29, zu 62 83–7, 89, 168, 214, 233, 242–5, 253, 362 Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara 114 impact 7, 102, 129, 139, 247, 273, 315, Stoss, Veit 317, 324, 326 329–30 Stránský, Pavel 139 interpretations 20, 27–8, 242–3, 248 Strigel, Bernhard 333 Thorn, treaty (1709) 286 Struensee, Johann Friedrich 299–302, 312 Thuringia 52 subfeuds (Afterlehen) 124 Thurzó, György of Bethlenfalva, palatine of subsidies 21, 196 Hungary 275 Suhm, Peter Frederik 301, 310 Tilly family 88 Suleiman I, Ottoman sultan 1520–66 Tilly, Jean Tserclaes 22, 79, 83 338 Tintoretto 327 Sully, Maximilien de Béthune duke of 49 Titian [(c.1486–1576)δ?] 317, 327, 353 Surat 346 titles Šusta, Josef 136–7 aristocratic 155–7, 160, 275 Sustermanns, Giusto 358–9, 365 electoral 94–5 Sustris, Friedrich 329 imperial 1–2, 4, 32, 260 Swabia 273 princely 6, 148, 151–65, 218, 275–6 Sweden royal 4, 170, 194, 222, 331, 369 army 25 Tizzone, family 223–4 culture 294, 307–12 trade 270–3, 294, 325, 370 and Empire 5, 7, 21–4 translation 61–2, 269, 303, 307–8 government 308–10, 312 see also imperial translation influence 33, 369 Transylvania 82, 182, 262, 267, 269 and Poland 245, 249, 255–6, 285–6 Trautson family 145 population 27 Trautson, Hanns 112 Switzerland 44, 179, 220, 228, 337 Trauttmansdorff, Maximilian count 20, and Empire 203, 316 24–5, 30, 32 Sylvestre, Louis de 319 treaties see individual entries system, international Trier, electorate 22, 101 Christian 2, 4 Trojans 60–4 and Empire 14–15, 26, 46–7, 367–71 Troppau, duchy 150–1, 157 as pentarchy 289 Turenne, Henri de la Tour d’Avergne szlachta (Polish nobility) 257, 287 viscomte de 29 Turin 191, 195 Tábor 85 Turkish Wars 31, 83, 88, 92, 177, 182, 206, Tacca, Pietro 354 247–50, 256, 264–71 Tana, Luigi 226 see also Imperial Turkish Tax, Long Tarnowski, Jan 255 Turkish War Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste 345–7 Trnava, see Nagyszombat taxation 234, 284 Tuscany, grand duchy 13–14, 85, 193–4, Hungarian 263–8, 272–3 200, 316, 329 exemptions 196 Tyrnau see Nagyszombat imperial 125–6, 170, 173, 203, 206–9 Tyrol 179, 182, 340, 354 military 23, 60, 183, 233, 239, 246, 263–8, 286 Ulm, battle (1805) 59, 65 Polish 248–9, 257 Ulm, imperial city 265, 324, 339, 348 see also customs duties Ukraine 249 Taxis see Thurn und Taxis United Provinces, see Dutch Republic Taxis, Leonhard von 180 universal monarchy, see monarchy Teschen, duchy 144, 152, 155, 159, 163 universities 67 400 index

Upper Hungary 79, 85, 267, 340 Wagner family 272 Upper Rhenish Kreis 192 Waldstein family 148 Utrecht, bishopric 203, 206 Waldstein, Adam of 157 Utrecht, treaty (1713) 38, 227 Wallachia, principality 248 Utrecht, union (1579) 213 Wallenstein, Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius 20, 23, 25, 79, 145, 157–8, 164, Vahlkampf, Joseph Anton von 73–4 245, 253, 257 Valmy, battle (1792) 53 Walloons 79, 83, 86 Van Dyck, Anthony 319, 352, 358–62, war, see individual conflicts 364–6 War Council see Court War Council Van Straten family 86–7 Warsaw, accord (1716) 288 Vanĕček, Václav 138 Warsaw, treaty (1699) 285 Vasa dynasty 242, 254, 295 weapons 239, 270–1, 274 Vaulx 81 Weckmann, Nikolaus 324 Veit, Jobst 343 Wehler, Hans-Ulrich 201 Velázquez, Diego 29, 354–5, 363–4 Welser, Hans 347 Vence 223 Welser, trading firm 343, 347 Venezuela 344 Weiß family 000 Venice 179, 323, 339, 341–3, 348 Weissenfels 332 Ventimiglia 223 Werbőczy, István 275 Vercelli 223, 229, 232 Westphalia, treaties (1648) Verga, Marcello 219–20 impact 6–7, 27–8, 32, 37, 167 Vermeyen, Jan 319, 350 interpretations 12, 182–3 Vervins, treaty (1598) 82 negotiations 20, 23–4, 27, 33 Victor Amadeus I, duke of Savoy terms 2, 21, 153, 193, 316 1630–7 226, 228 Westphalian Kreis 204, 206, 212–13 Victor Amadeus II, duke of Savoy Wettin dynasty 7, 143, 246–7, 281, 283, from 1674 and king of Sardinia 289, 328 1720–30 196–8, 229–30 see also Saxony Victor Emanuel I, king of Sardinia Wetzlar, imperial city 58, 73, 130, 370 1802–21 201 White Mountain, battle (1620) 79, 85–6, Vienna 31, 58, 91, 169, 261, 266–7, 272, 341 176 arsenal 270 Wieland, Christoph Martin 59 Habsburg court in 92–100, 116–18, 128, Wilhelm II, emperor of Germany 160, 174, 276, 279, 330–1, 355, 359, 363, 1888–1918 134 365 William ‘the Silent’, prince of peace congress (1814–15) 68, 74, 193, Orange 211–12 202, 367 William III, Dutch stadholder and king of sieges 92, 182, 233 England and Scotland 1689–1702 49, Vierhaus, Rudolf 330 191 Viglius van Aytta 206–8 Wilson, Peter H. 241, 243–4, 247 Vijayanagara, empire and city 344–7 Winkelbauer, Thomas 114, 158, 262 Villanova 195 Wiśniowiecki, Dymitr 251–2 Villinger, Jakob 338 Wiśniowiecki, Jarema 250 Vingboons, Philips 319 Wiśniowiecki, Michael Korybut 251, 256 Virgil 62–3 Wittelsbach dynasty 7, 32, 92, 247, 282, Vischer family 326 329 Visconti family 82 Witten, Hans 326 Vladislas (Ulászló) II, king of Hungary and Wittenberg 325 Bohemia 1490–1516 342 Władysław IV, king of Poland 1632–48 Vogtland 153 251 Voigt, Christian Gottlob 56–8 Wolf, August 67 Vries, Adrien de 327, 353–4 Wolfenbüttel 328 Vulpius, August 59 see also Brunswick index 401

Wölfflin, Heinrich 317 Zasławski, Dominik 254 Worms, imperial city 183, 207, 212 Zeitz 332 Wrangel, Karl Gustav count 29 Zhovte Vody, battle (1648) 254 Württemberg, duchy 5, 7, 22, 102, 197, 331 Żółkiewski, Stanisłlaw 255 Württemberg-Weiltingen dynasty 144, 159 Zollern, Karl count 113 Würzburg 328 Zsitvatorok, treaty (1606) 268 Zuccarello 222, 224–6, 228 Zablat, battle (1619) 84 Zwickau 326 Zasius, Johann Ulrich 112 Zwinger 330

Illustration section

Centres or Periphery? Art and Architecture in the Empire Thomas Kaufmann

Lucas Cranach the Elder, St. Christopher, woodcut.

Bernt Notke, St. George and the Dragon, Stockholm, Great Church (Storkyrka). Egidius Sadeler, Prague during the reign of Rudolf II.

St. Michael’s church, Munich, interior view of apse (designed by Friedrich Sustris). Bernardo Bellotto, View of Schönbrunn Palace and gardens.

View (print) of Zwinger, Dresden, designed by Matthaeus Daniel Poeppelmann. Where did the Jewels of the German Imperial Princes come from? Aspects of Material Cultural in the Empire Kim Siebenhüner

Bernhard Strigel (1460–1528), Emperor Maxi- Pendant with Saint George as dragon milian I with his family, after 1515. slayer. Germany, end of 16th century. Gold, enamel, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls.

Hans Maler (1480–1526/1529), Anna of Hungary and Bohemia. The ‘Three Brethren’ and the ‘White Rose’. Watercolor on parchment.

The ‘Feather’ and the ‘Belt’. After Gerard Loyet, drawings before 1504. Watercolor on parchment. Portraiture at the Imperial Court in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century Friedrich Polleroß

Hans von Aachen, Emperor Rudolf II, Wolf Kilian (after Jeremias Günther?), Emperor painting, around 1603. Ferdinand II, engraving, 1622. Egidius Sadeler after Adriaen de Vries, Emperor Rudolf II on Horseback, engraving, around 1603.

Jan van Hoecke, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm on Horseback, painting, around 1645. Jan van Hoecke, Emperor Ferdinand III, painting, around 1645.

Joannes Meyssens and Cornelius Galle the Younger after ‘Van Dyck’, Emperor Ferdinand III, engraving, 1649. Frans Luycx, Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Tyrol, painting around 1650.

Joannes Meyssens and Cornelius Galle the Younger after ‘Van Dyck’, Empress Maria Anne, engraving, 1649. Maps

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BRUNSWICK E BRANDENBURG Gnesen T Stendal

T Berlin The Hanover • Küstrin• Deventer Bish K Ü • Posen Hague • A • B • HOLLAND L N Frankfurt E •Brandenburg Osnabrück E • Schwiebus Geldern N F KINGDOM OF Boundary B L Münster E O Arch. of the R POLAND • LIPPE G W Magdeburg• EMPIRE Wesel Goslar• • • Dortmund Wittenberg Lower Lusatia Kalisch Bish Anhalt • • •• Paderborn Kottbus Glogau Bruges Antwerp Rhine Eisleben Torgau • • Westphalia • • Leipzig Upper Lusatia Ghent• Mühlhausen Arch. Berg Mark • • Louvain ELECTORATE OF Liegnitz Breslau Cologne • SAXONY • Aachen HESSE Dresden• S Artois BRABANTBrussels • Bonn •Eisenach• I • Czenstochau • Liege • Jena• L U Chemnitz• E A Schmalkalden• Oppeln S • S S Henneberg S Koblenz A Fulda Reuss N Plauen I A r Cracow ie • r Frankfurt F T Mainz Bish

. • Prague LUXEMBURG h Würzburg Eger c Arch. • • HABSBURG TERRITORIES r Bish SEDAN A Bayreuth R Mainz Kingdom of AUSTRIAN LINE • Bamberg Trier E Worms BOHEMIA LE • SPANISH LINE CT ORA A L PALATINE Nuremberg MORAVIA WETTIN TERRITORIES • Speier • Rothenburg• UPPER Bish Heidelberg Ansbach PALATINATE • Hall • ALBERTINE LINE Metz • • Brünn ERNESTINE LINE N e N Budweis in E • Danube ra D Stuttgart Regensburg • r • A • o • • Y HOHENZOLLERN TERRITORIES L B WÜRTTEMBERG R f Bish • A o • Bish G BRANDENBURG LINE y h Strasbourg Ulm • N C c Duchy of Passau U FRANCONIAN LINE u • H D • BAVARIA Archduchy Augsburg • Vienna Pressburg WITTELSBACH TERRITORIES • Linz of • • AUSTRIA BAVARIA LINE • Munich E ABOVE Bish BELOW Sundgau • THE ENNS PALATINATE LINE • Augsburg • THE ENNS Montbeliard Arbh. Budapest Konstanz• • N OLDENBURG DYNASTY Basel Salzburg A FRANCHE I Bishop Zürich DENMARK-SCHLESWIG- R HOLSTEIN COMTÉ Basel T Neuchâtel Innsbruck Graz S Y OLDENBURG Bern • U A R STYRIA A G SWISS N TYROL U CONFEDERATION H ECCLESIASTICAL CARINTHIA H TERRITORIES S Bozen I Geneva •Klagenfurt K • IMPERIAL CITIES R OTTOMAN VALAIS U T EMPIRE Udine Laibach SAVOY GORIZIA • REPUBLIC OF VENICE CARNIOLA Agram MILAN Trieste •

the empire in 1547. GERMANY AFTER THE DENMARK BALTIC Konigsberg SEA Lauenburg• RÜGEN Danzig• WESTPHALIAN PEACE Stralsund• Hellsberg Kiel Kolberg • WEST POMERANIA Rützebüttel • PRUSSIA IN 1648 HOLSTEIN Rostock • • Kammin Marienwerden • • Wismar EASt EAST POMERANIA MECKLENBURG FRIESLAND Hamburg • Emden Stettin • Groudenz • Oldenburg ARCH. Groningen Bremen • • Thorn • • •• Lüneburg Bromberg UNITED Electorate of NETHERLANDS BRUNSWICK Warthe Vistula (free of BISH BRANDENBURG Spanish Habsburg) LÜNEBURG Gnesen Berlin KINGDOM OF Stendal Brandenburg • • Amsterdam • • Küstrin Posen • The • Deventer Hanover • • POLAND • BISH G • Frankfurt Hague • • Brunswick Schweibus • R Osnabrück E • B • Magdeburg Münster N EL E T • • T • Lippe L U • A B Boundary N

K E F Wittenberg L Kalisch of the CLEVES Wesel O • • W ANHALT LOWER LUSATIA EMPIRE • Goslar Kottbus • • •Paderborn • Dartmund Torgau Glogau

• Rhine Bruges • Eisleben Antwerp WEST Leipzig UPPER LUSATIA Dunkirk Ghent• MARK PHALIA • Electorate of Saale SAXONY Liegnitz• BERG • Gőrlitz • • Breslau Czenstochou • Arch. Dresden Brussels Julich • Cologne Erfurt • • Lille LIÉGE • Aachen • Bonn HESSE-KASSEL • Friedland Namur • Chemnitz S Oppeln • I • • Liége Wetzlar L NASSAU E Cambrai • S • Fulda • I A • Glatz Coburg Cracow Bish • Frankfurt • • Eger Prague SPANISH Darmstadt • NETHERLANDS BAYREUTH Kingdom of F Mainz • Würzburg UPPER Luxemburg BOHEMIA Bamberg PALATINATE Worms• Olmütz • Electoral Pilsen R PALATINATEHeidelberg Nuremberg • MORAVIA Verdun • • • Speier • Rothenburg ANSBACH • • Metz Brünn • A • Hall • Bish Regensburg Heilbronn Budweis E • • N I Rhine Stuttgart • Danube Toul• A BADEN • • R

N R Bish • WÜRTTEMBERG Bish. AUSTRIA O

L Strassburg Passau • • Ulm Electorate of Meusse • • BAVARIA Linz HABSBURG TERRITORIES Pressburg • Vienna• AUSTRIAN LINE C • • Munich SPANISH LINE Freiburg LOWER Y F Breisgau UPPER AUSTRIA O Y HOHENZOLLERN TERRITORIES Ravensburg R • R AUSTRIA M A SUNDGAU Augsburg O ARaab BRANDENBURG LINE Montbéliard • G • D E Basel • N Buda FRANCONIAN LINE • • G G U • N H FRANCHE I WITTELSBACH TERRITORIES Konstanz K N H S U I BAVARIAN LINE Besançon Zürich K R PALATINATE LINE Innsbruck Graz H U COMTÉ VORARLBERG T WETTIN TERRITORIES • Neuchâtel • TYROL STYRIA ALBERTINE LINE Bern• ERNESTINE LINE SWITZERLAND • Klagenfurt OTTOMAN • Lausanne (Free Of CARINTHIA SWEDISH ACQUISITONS Austrian Habsburg) EMPIRE FRENCH ACQUISITONS Grisons Sitten DANISH POSSESSIONS • • Locarno Geneva • Bish Trent ECCLESIASTICAL Laibach TERRITORIES SAVOY • IMPERIAL CITIES REPUBLIC OF VENICE

The Empire in 1648. Germany And Italy in 1803 after the Principal Decree of the Imperial Deputation ( Reichsdeputationshauptschluss)

Kingdom of Denmark Baltic Sea Danzig North Sea • Swedish • Kolberg Holstein Pomerania Wismar West Jever Lübeck • Pomerania Prussia Hamburg• • Mecklenburg Emden • Stettin c Thorn

i l Bremen •

b Oldenburg

u Hanover Arenberg Brandenburg A p I Oder e S R Berlin Posen S • n U Potsdam a Salm South i R Prussia v Magdeburg a P Kalisch t Kottbus • a Göttingen B Westphalia D • u Leipzig c H h e • y s Kassel s Saxony

o e f Cologne D B a Dresden e r m r g Silesia s t Rhine Nassau a d Thuringia

Wetzlar t F

r Koblenz•

e A

u n s tr Prague ia c Würzburg n S

h ile sia

• Bohemia R

e Nuremberg Ansbach Moravia p Brünn u Regensburg

b Rhine Ulm E.A. l i • c Electorate of Bavaria Strasbourg• Württemberg Danube Augsburg Passau • Linz • Munich Vienna• •Pressburg Austria Lake Saizburg Basel • Constance Zurich • Electorate of Neuchâtel Helvetian Salzburg Innsbruck Kingdom • • Republic Lausanne Berne Carinthia of • Tyrol Hungary • Republic of Geneva Valais Venetia Piedmont Carniola Milan Verona • • • • Venice Turin Padua • Duchy of Parma Adriatic Sea Turkey Bologna• Ligurian Republic Lucca Republic of Nice Florence • • Republic of • • Marino Lucca Imperial Cities Kingdom of Territory of the Electoral Etruria Archchancellor States of Papal Territory of the Emperor Elba States Mediterranean Sea Italian Republic The Presidos Prussia Corsica Border of the Holy Roman Kingdom of Roman Empire Republic • Rome Naples

Kingdom of Sardinia

The Empire in 1803. SWEDISH LIVONIA

(to Russia 1721) R

N Riga COURLAND • U POLISH E • Milau LIVONIA S

D DENMARK • Dünaburg S Dvina E I

LITHUANIA A W

Königsberg Smolensk N • Lübeck S • • Wilno • •Hamburg Danzig E Stettin • •Bremen • • M East Prussia Niemen

BRANDENBURG Thorn P • •Berlin • Magdeburg Frankfurt I Minden• • Poznan • R Halle • Warsaw Bug Brześć Leipzig •

K • E • Pripet Altranstädt SAXONY • Dresden Breslau O • • • Lublin SILESIA Kliszów R • A Kiev Prague• O • Cracow N • Dnieper Biata • Lwow AUSTRIA • PODOLIA ( to Turkey 1672-99) •Human Braclaw •Kamieniec • Podolski

OTTOMAN EMPIRE

The Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1660–1772. K I N G D O M E R O I F

P P M Eperjes O • L E Besztercebánya Kassa • • A N Nagyszombat Körmöcbánya• N A • Selmecbánya D • Sárospatak M Vienna • • Tisza Huszt Y Szécsény • O Pozsony• R Nógrád • Eger (Pressburg) A R • • G Esztergom Nagybánya Vác Hatvan Szatmár• N • Visegrád• •• • Sopron U Győr (Raab) Buda • Y Pest • H • • Debrecen G M L Beszterce Szolnok O Veszprém Nagyvárad • L UR • PRI Dés O NCI • D B • • Kőrös • PAL S Székesfehérvár ITY A • OF V Szentgotthárd B T H R Tisza A I Drava A Szamos N •Kolozsvár SY A H Simontornya LV • Gyula • • A Koppány• • Torda Marosvásárhely NI Nagykanizsa• A Sava Szekszárd Szeged Csanád • • • • Maros Lippa Gyulafehérvár Segesvár Szigetvár • • • Pécs• Déva Zagreb • • Zenta • Temesvár Nagyszeben• Brassó • Lugos • • Karánsebes Eszék Danube •

Karlóca R • Szalánkemén• I A E H PU C L L A BL • W A Belgrade I C O

F V OTTOMAN EMPIRE EN

I Danube C E

Hungary and its neighbours c.1600.